The Philosophers' Cocoon

What drives women away from philosophy? Some anecdotal speculation

(*update: comments are closed)

There are a number of discussions going on right now about what drives so many women away from philosophy.  Among the explanations offered are:

• Chilly/masculine climates
• Sexual harrassment
• Implicit associations of philosophy with masculinity
• The content of philosophy itself
• The rampant idea in philosophy that M&E are "real philosophy" whereas areas more attractive to women and other historically underrepresented minorities (e.g. feminist philosophy, critical race theory, etc.) are "not real philosophy"

I think there's probably some truth to all of these explanations -- yet none of them entirely jibe with my (admittedly anecdotal) experience with female students.  As several people point out in comments over at the Smoker, it's well-known that females tend to leave philosophy very early on as undergraduates -- basically, somewhere between intro classes and medium-level undergraduate courses.  This is, obviously, very peculiar -- and I'd like to speculate on the basis of my experience why it occurs.

My feeling is that female students tend to find common philosophical methods to be alienating. What, after all, are our methods? Let's go all the way back to Socrates in The Republic. Socrates goes through an entire project of developing a hypothetical just city. He talks about workers, guardians, etc. It's all abstraction -- and, as we all know, this does seem to be a problematic feature of his account. He's talking about workers and guardians almost entirely in the abstract, largely ignoring what real people are like, and what sorts of concerns they might have as people. There's just no heart to any of it.

Now turn to something that one might expect female students to tend to find attractive (but in my experience they don't): Judith Thompson's article on abortion, with the whole violinist case. In my experience, female undergraduates -- as much as they like the idea of freedom of choice -- often find the argument itself very alienating, even rather horrifying. There's just so little heart in it. It's mostly about whether one has a right to let a poor violinist die. As compelling as the argument is, it also seems rather...heartless.

Third, consider "core" areas of analytic philosophy: metaphysics and epistemology. My experience here is that female students tend to find the debates in these areas as overly "academic" -- as silly games that their male peers tend to find totally oddly fascinating. Indeed, it is always very striking to me that the moment I begin doing anything M&E in my intro courses, the male students largely seem to come alive whereas the females tend to have this look of "my goodness, do people really waste their time on this!?" 

Now, I don't mean to affirm anything like the naive -- and rather offensive -- view that men are "thinkers" and women "feelers."  My claim is different. It seems to me that my female students are -- for whatever reason -- put off by their perception that philosophy has no feeling in it. This isn't to say, in any way, that men are "thinkers" and women "feelers." If anything, it is to suggest that female students (perhaps because of their better upbringing?) tend to better balance analytical thinking and feeling than male undergraduate students -- and this too coheres with my experience. It shocks me when my male students defend (as they too often do) what strike me as overly abstract and rather heartless positions, particularly in ethics and political philosophy (where, again, male students in my experience tend to focus on emotionally cold assertions about rights, and indeed, it seems more and more male students find attractive the very extreme libertarian position that no one ever has a right to expect anything from anyone).

Anyway, these are just some speculations based on my experience.  My experience -- and again, it is only anecdotal -- is that female students tend to be alienated by the very way that philosophers go about answering questions. It's not just about content or perceived masculinity. It is about sapping philosophy of almost all feeling whatsoever.  Finally, quite aside from the issue of whether this is what drives women away, this seems to me an important issue in its own right. Why, when feelings are so much a part of what makes us human -- and what separates us from psychopaths -- does so much philosophy (particularly moral and political philosophy) proceed in such an obviously "cold" way: with abstract models like the state of nature or Rawls' original position, as opposed to the much more embodied perspectives of feminist epistemology, etc.? 

November Issue of The Reasoner is Out

Check out the November issue of The Reasoner.

My piece in this issue has benefited a lot from discussions on the Cocoon with you, my fellow pupae. So thanks a lot, everyone!

To make an omelette...

[Update: comments now opened - sorry!]

In a post last week, I discussed how I've found it liberating to just write stuff pretty quickly and send it out -- sometimes to conferences, sometimes directly to journals. I noted that although this has led to some pretty brutal referee comments, it has also led to some publications and, perhaps more importantly (to me at least), to rediscovering the fun of doing philosophy. The first comment on the post, by an anonymous friend, suggested the following:

I worry that you may be hurting yourself professionally. My sense is that...if you're sending out problematic work, you may be encouraging a certain reputation for yourself...I'm not completely sure of this, but that's my worry.

I really appreciate the concern expressed (both its content, and the friendly sentiment behind it). Still, in my reply to the comment, I resisted the worry, and I'd like to dwell a little bit more here on precisely why I resist it. There are two reasons for this. First, I'm curious to hear some of your opinions on the matter. Second, I'd like to share my reasons for resisting the concern with all of you, as -- in my own mind -- I feel like I might have learned something that may be helpful to others.

I suppose I should begin by stating clearly that I agree it's not a good idea to send out sloppy, poorly-thought out work. I agree that it is important not to send everything out one writes. It's important to put a new paper away for a while, read it again, and see, with a little perspective, whether the paper still seems any good (I assume we all know the experience all too well of writing something, reading it a week or two later, and realizing it's all -- or mostly -- crap!). I also try to send stuff out to conferences before going straight to journals, whenever this is possible, as it is a good way to get some initial feedback on whether the paper is promising (so you don't needlessly waste your, reviewers', or editors' time).

Here, though, is where I am coming from. If you are at all like me (and I've run into many people who have had something like this experience), graduate school rammed into your head this message to you that you should be something of a perfectionist -- that you should be really sure something is good before you show it to other people or send it anywhere. In my experience, this message is only partly (but partly) the result of explicit instruction. People in positions of power -- graduate school faculty -- warn you, much as anonymous friend warned me here, that sending stuff out before it is "ready" can be a great mistake. Another part of the story, however, is more implicit. In graduate school, unless one is an out-and-out superstar (I wasn't), there is (in my experience) a certain tendency to become insecure. One worries that one's ideas aren't good enough -- that your advisor/professors won't think they're any good, or that you'll look like a fool in the eyes of your fellow grad students for having the Stupidest Idea Ever.

Here, in my experience, is how all of this sometimes (oftentimes?) shakes out. If you're me (when I was a grad student), you become so insecure that it practically paralyzes you. You no longer trust yourself. You come to worry more about what others think of your ideas than what you think of them. And, of course, to a certain extent, this is perfectly rational! First, your faculty/advisors are more knowledgable than you. Second, it's important to learn to be self-critical -- and worrying about what others think of your arguments can help in this regard. But here, in my experience, is something that happens to many people...one experiences all of this as profoundly stultifying. Indeed, as I've explained before on this blog, I actually came to hate philosophy for a while (a few years!) in grad school. Mostly, I became to hate it because I began to hate myself. My ideas were never good enough (in my eyes, or, at times, in the eyes of others).

And so I fell into a trap...a trap that I've seen other grad students (and now, in some cases, young faculty) fall into as well. That is the trap of becoming such a perfectionist that you (A) almost never get anything out, and (B) hate doing philosophy. I can tell you from experience: this is no way to live. It is also, in my experience, no way to get published. And I've seen it happen with others, too. I've seen grad students never finish their dissertations because of it, and I've seen young faculty never publish because of it.

When I found myself in this trap for long enough, it finally occurred to me that I had "nothing to lose." I wasn't getting stuff published. I was stressing myself out to no end. And so I tried something different. I tried the strategy I mentioned in my previous post. I tried just trusting myself, writing out papers quickly right as they came to me, and sent them out. And so while, yes, I have had to endure some nasty reviewer comments, and yes, I may have a reputation out there with some (many?) editors for sending in shoddy work, here's my rationale: it's simply worked better than -- and made me a far happier, healthy individual -- than the perfectionism that graduate school ingrained in me.

Yes, I realize there are risks involved...but one of the things I think I've learned about what it means to be a professional philosopher (as opposed to a graduate student) is that, much as a young child is raised into adulthood and then has to find their own way, so too must one do the same with the lessons one learned (from wise and not so wise) people in grad school. The lessons are there for a reason. The people -- the faculty -- who helped "raise" you tend to know what they're talking about. I, for one, think I benefitted immensely from those (thank you Tom Christiano) who tried to hammer   And yet...when you're on your own, you must find your own way. You have to find out what works for you, given the unique individual you are. If being a perfectionist isn't working (as it didn't for me), what do you have to lose by letting things fly a bit? Your reputation? Maybe...though if you're me you didn't have any reputation to lose to begin with. ;)

Anyway, I hope some of you found this post illuminating. Regardless of whether I'm a fool or not for sending stuff out, the journey to loving philosophy again has, at least for me, been worth whatever professional risks it involves. If there are any of you out there who have endured similar struggles, I encourage you to give it a shot. It is risky, I suppose...but there are risks all around, are there not? There are risks in following the party-line too -- of only sending stuff out "when it's ready" (the risk being that you spend years on something, it never pans out, and you hate philosophy).

"Safe, and a Little Boring"

A very interesting passage from Akeel Bilgrami's presentation at "The Editor's Cut" workshop that Brad linked to in his previous post:

Barry also asked whether I feel that submissions today are safe and a little boring.  Well, let me tell you that a very distinguished philosopher...has been contemplating stepping down from the board because, as he puts it, the submissions are getting tedious and merely moving counters around...I was speaking to both Tim Scanlon and Sam Scheffler...and they were lamenting the fact that the recent papers in journals were too much in the business of commenting on each other's work, and not enough of stepping back from this clubby discussion, and presenting the issues on their own terms as matters of importance to consider quite apart from the latest move by someone in one's professional circle of philosophy. It's hard not to feel sometimes sympathy with that reaction too...

In my experience, these sentiments are fairly common in the profession. Am I right? If so, this begs the obvious question: why, if there are so many people who think a lot of the stuff out there is so "boring", does there seem to be so little impetus to change things? Why, as I've said before, does our profession continue to prize rigor so much, when rigor itself seems so naturally opposed to grand, brave new steps (viz. the less an argument aims to accomplish -- i.e. the more boring it is -- the easier it is to make a sound argument; and the more an argument aims to accomplish, the more difficult it is to pull off rigorously)? Should journal editors perhaps make a concerted push away from publishing "clubby", chess-piece-moving discussions, by perhaps instructing reviewers to alter their priorities, as Ryle famously did as Editor of Mind (Ryle was notoriously adverse to literature citations, largely for the reasons Scanlon and Scheffler lament)? 

Editors discuss the state of play

Wonder what editors of top philosophy journals think about the field? 

You can listen to them discuss the current state of play, recent history, and possible avenues of development here.   

Editors of the following journals are included: J Phil, Mind, Phil Review, Philosophy and Technology, BJPS, Synthese, Phil Quarterly, and the European Journal. 

 

A Decision Procedure for Evaluating Natural Language Arguments

My fellow pupae,

I think that those of you who are teaching logic and critical thinking might find this a useful addition to your arsenal of teaching resources.

There's more interesting stuff in this issue of the APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy.

Philosophy and Interdisciplinarity

Recently I went to a conference where a lot of different disciplines (mostly from empirical sciences) came together to discuss future research possibilities, and it was centered around one specific topic. The spirit of the conference was to enhance interdisciplinarity and cooperation in this area, which, I think, is a great idea. Yet to me it seemed that there was no real interdisciplinarity involved in the event. The people either talked only to their community (economists, engineers, decision analysts etc.), or although they talked in an interdisciplinary spirit, they mainained that what they were saying was their perspective, and each discipline keeps to have its own perspective. 

Now I think that although we all have different perspectives, we still talk about the same problem, the same world. So different perspectives (with their own methodologies and results) should have an impact on what the others are saying and doing, right?

It happened that I was the only philosopher at this conference, so I tried to bring in the perspective from political philosophy, democratic theory and so on. Yet I had the impression that this did not really enter the debates, which, of course, could have been due to the lack of my presentation skills. But let's assume that this lack of presentation skills was not the only reason.

Now my questions to you, Cocooners, would be: How can  and should philosophers make their voice heard in interdisciplinary talk? Is there anything special philosophers can contribute? Do we have special resources to deal with those issues? Do we have a special perspective, or is our perspective the combination of all perspectives? Does the talk of interdisciplinarity make sense, or is it just a nice word? What could it look like, if it made sense? And what is the best way to present the philosophical perspective in contexts as described above (and is it different for graduate students as compared to full professors)? Looking forward to your ideas!

New Blog on Where to Publish

The Venue Poll, a blog on where to publish, might be of interest for the Cocoon community.

Balance Series, Part 4.2: Children, Pt. 3

A month ago, I wrote a post examining the question of whether philosophy graduate students should have children during their graduate studies or wait until they had secured stable employment. For those wondering about the gender-related worries the original post generated, I have addressed those in a separate follow-up. Here, I tackle some other concerns raised by readers and draw attention to a few qualifications that should have been made regarding the original post. I’ll begin with the latter task.

First, one possible implication of the original points I made is that those who deeply value their academic careers should not have children at all. One may wonder why I did not consider that possibility. One reason would be that I find the extreme view that no academic philosopher could be justified in having children to be radically implausible. The main reason, however, is that the post was written under the assumption that the reader is making a decision about when to have children, not whether to have them. A decision about whether to have children involves much different considerations than a decision regarding when (ideally) one will have children. Naturally, since those who do not want children are much less likely to face the decision of deciding when to have a child, I assumed in the original post that those in the relevant audience possessed a significant desire to have children: it might be a desire they are willing to abandon under some circumstances, but doing so would be a tremendous loss to them. Thus, the original post is framed primarily in terms of a complicated choice: given that I want to have children, would it be best to have them

1. while I am still a graduate student,
2. when I have completed my PhD but not yet found a tenure-track position,
3. when I have completed my PhD and secured a tenure-track position, or
4. after I have secured tenure at an academic institution.

In the original post, I regarded (2) and (3) as fairly comparable and did not differentiate between them, and I eliminated (4) because it takes so long to achieve tenure that a delay of this length would only be feasible for an extremely small percentage of professional philosophers. For the vast majority, a decision to opt for (4) would effectively be a decision not to have children. I then argued that options (2) and (3) were preferable to (1) for various reasons.

Another point worth clarifying is that the original post was not targeted at those who have children before they enter graduate school in philosophy. This might seem puzzling initially, so let me explain my reasoning. If you and your partner already have a child (or children), then I suspect the major life changes that this generates have already taken place (or at least begun). If you can balance your responsibilities to care for your children while working a full-time job and if the physical and emotional tolls of pregnancy are behind you, then it isn’t clear how handling these familial commitments in graduate school (which often affords greater schedule flexibility than a non-academic job) would be more onerous than handling them under ordinary circumstances.

At this juncture, it might be worth recapping the general for/against reasons for delaying having children until after one has his or her PhD in hand. Let’s start with the general reasons in favor of delay:

• No added strain on one’s graduate study.
• Children will probably end up moving from city to city less than they otherwise would, and generally an unstable living situation can be detrimental to children.
• Greater financial stability when children are born.

 And some of the reasons against delay:

• Greater strain on one’s professional life (especially for women) when making the push for tenure.
• Increased risk of genetic abnormalities. (The statistics on this seem to vary, but the probability of having a child with Down’s Syndrome, for instance, appear to rise considerably as the mother approaches 35 and skyrockets afterward.)
• Greater difficulty in having multiple children several years apart.
• The graduate student lifestyle offers a more flexible schedule than one will have as a full-time professor, and so it is a more ideal time to conceive and raise young children. (The first few years after conception are the most demanding; they get progressively easier.)

We could spend a lot of time debating which set of reasons ought to “win” in various cases, but it may be more useful to think of these as guidelines applicable to one’s situation. They will apply in varying degrees depending on the circumstances. Younger female graduate students and male graduate students with younger female partners, for instance, can delay having a child without as much concern about genetic defects or difficulties with having multiple children as older individuals in the same situations. There is also the important question of whether the woman conceiving the child will have health coverage at the time of conception, a factor that could vary widely depending on one’s student or employment status.

Nevertheless, I want to close with a general thought in favor of my original position—that one should, if feasible, delay having children until after completing the PhD. Attrition rates at philosophy PhD programs are very high. Eric Schwitzgebel, for instance, once estimated the attrition rates of PhD programs as being 50% or higher, and other professors with whom I have corresponded have acknowledged similar percentages. I consider finishing one’s graduate career with the dreaded ABD designation to be a simply awful fate: this likely involves spending at least 5-6 years of one’s life on a project that remains forever unfinished, and it leaves the graduate student with extraordinarily limited career prospects in philosophy. I don’t know what percentage of tenure-track philosophy professors get denied tenure, but I suspect it is much lower than 50%. (Someone should definitely correct me on this if I’m mistaken: I don’t know where I’d find data to back up this claim.) This doesn’t mean that it’s easy to get tenure, but those who find themselves in a tenure-track job find their way to tenure more often than those admitted into doctoral programs find their way to the PhD. Moreover, if professors do not get tenure the first time around, they can still hit the job market again and search for tenure at another university. This is a big contrast to finishing ABD: if you don’t earn a PhD, your job prospects become devastatingly worse. Thus, the biggest hurdles facing professional philosophers are finishing the dissertation and finding a tenure-track job. Again, this isn’t meant to imply it’s easy to secure tenure: it’s a comparative claim about what stages of the process a philosopher is more likely to hit a snag. Far fewer philosophers hit snags when it comes to securing tenure than those who hit snags with either the dissertation or the job search process.

So what’s the takeaway from this observation? If other things are equal, one ought to prioritize getting the dissertation completed (thereby avoiding the eternal ABD label) and then finding a tenure-track job. Now, there will be many cases where things aren’t equal—especially for graduate students who don’t think stable careers in philosophy are all that important in the grand scheme of things or who begin graduate school in their 30s—but if things are equal and one can feasibly postpone conceiving and raising a child until after the dissertation and job search are complete, then it seems there’s a general reason to favor this strategy. Admittedly, since the job search can stretch for many years, postponing until it is complete will often not prove feasible, even for philosophers who get a PhD before 30.

For many, pursuing a serious career in academic philosophy involves making difficult tradeoffs between one’s professional and family life. Even after three posts on the matter, I suspect many important issues are left unexplored and that much more can be learned from sustained discussion of the topic.

Balance Series, Part 4.1: Children, Pt. 2

Roughly one month ago, I wrote a post that highlighted some of the professional costs associated with having children during one’s graduate career and argued that these costs, in conjunction with some of the potential impacts on the children’s welfare, provided good reasons for (if possible) waiting to have children until after completing one’s graduate career. Admittedly, even if there are some prima facie reasons to delay child-rearing, a number of readers pointed out potential issues that I had not adequately addressed. (The topic was undoubtedly too broad to cover in meager 1100 words.)

The post turned out to be rather polarizing. Thus, after some helpful correspondence with readers (particularly Nora Berenstein, Jennifer Szende, Ben Almassi, and Heidi Lockwood), I have posted two follow ups. This one elucidates and addresses the concerns about gender-insensitivity; the other one clarifies some of my original points and addresses several others not discussed in the original post.

To motivate the topic of this post, consider a comment one professor sent me in a detailed private message: “I think a lot of your points are just obviously true. But I don't think they are things that need to be said, and I think that expressing them in the way that you have has harmful effects which land disproportionately on women (among those who are in the situation you describe).” Now this doesn’t mean everyone felt like the basic content of the original post was right: as the second follow up suggests, the central claim was quite controversial. Rather the point is that the presentation of this point of view, even if the underlying claims are true, has some undesirable effects.

Specifically, my remarks did not acknowledge a catch-22 that female philosophers often confront: If they conceive a child during graduate school, people will accuse them of not taking your graduate studies seriously enough; conversely, if they delay having a child until their first professional appointment, they’ll be perceived as not taking their job seriously enough. This dilemma doesn’t meaningfully confront male philosophers because their family choices are rarely held to the same level of scrutiny as women’s family choices. The scrutiny can be severe enough that there may be good reason not to mention motherhood when applying for jobs in philosophy. In this larger context, my post maybe perceived as one example of the more general problem of men explaining things: the points mentioned aren’t particularly novel, and it seems condescending to suggest that female readers wouldn’t consider the obvious effects of such an important decision on their personal and professional lives. The problem of mansplaining is far more widespread than most might suspect, so this concern is not one that should be ignored or underestimated.

While none of this is consistent with the message I intended to send in the original post or related discussion, messages can obviously detrimental impacts whether or not they are intentionally sent. Nevertheless, I don’t think this should prevent the discussion from moving forward in a more positive direction. At least two broader questions arise from the concerns raised about the original post. First, what disadvantages do female philosophers face with regard to work-life balance that male philosophers do not? And second, what are some strategies for overcoming these obstacles?

While there are at least two blogs (here and here) devoted heavily to these and related issues, nothing prevents us from discussing them here. In fact, we’ve already had some discussion of the Gendered Conference Campaign and the related debate on Leiter Reports. These kinds of conversations need to continue so we can make further progress on recognizing and correcting these problems.

Cocoon-fest at the Eastern?

So I was thinking we should have a get-together at the Eastern APA! I've already met several of you at conferences, and it would be good to see you all again, as well as meet those of you who are attending who I haven't met. It would also, I think, just be a lot of fun for everyone to get together. So, whatch'a all think? I'll throw a party in my room. Refreshments will be provided (though feel free to bring your own too!). RSVP-ing is obviously not necessary, but it would be cool to know who's planning to make it. I'll post all the details here as we get closer to December. Perhaps we can turn it into an annual affair! (Oh, and non-Cocooners are welcome too!)

New Contributor: Dan Cavedon-Taylor

I'd like to welcome the Cocoon's newest contributor, Dan Cavedon-Taylor. Dan is a Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews. He received his PhD in 2011 from Birkbeck, University of Lond, and his areas of primary interest are aesthetics, philosophy of art, social epistemology, mind, perception, and agency. Finally, as you can see from his webpage, he has already published in Phil Quarterly, Philosophia, the British Journal of Aesthetics, Ratio, and Philosophical Psychology. Welcome! 

Two Reader Questions

One of our readers sent me a couple of questions over email.  Here they are:

I’m sitting here trying to address some referee reports for two papers I’ve been asked to revise and resubmit and it occurs to me I’m not sure about how much wiggle-room I should take myself to be allowed in addressing referees’ points (e.g., do I need to address them all; if I think some requested changes are stupid, can I push back and politely say so, or should I just suck it up). I imagine other early-careerists might have wondered the same?

Your post on Trust thyself, let it flow, throw it all at the wall, see what sticks... has me intrigued as well. It would be interesting to know just how much time early-careerist have for research and what strategies they use in order to make time for research. I’ve managed to spend from 1pm to 7:45pm today researching. I think this is all the research I’ve done the past two weeks. I wonder if that’s normal or not. I was surprised to learn you are able to work on a paper flat out for a whole week!

I'd be curious to see what you, my fellow Cocooners, have to say on both issues. Here are my feelings about the first one. I've heard others say that if a referee comment/criticism is really stupid, you should push back and explain why. For my part, I think it's smarter to go out of one's way to placate them. If they recommended an R&R, they're pretty on board with the paper, and you don't want to run the risk of needlessly pissing them off. I suggest: respectfully raise and address their point in the paper. If you really think they're off the mark, relegate the objection and reply to a footnote. What'cha all think?

As for the second issue, here's how I've been working the past three years in my present job. During the school year, I basically teach all day Tuesday and Thursday (three 2-hour classes), so research on those days is mostly out -- though sometimes I'll get an hour or two in during the morning while I'm at the dog park with my pooch (I tend to do most of my work there; being outside puts me in a good mood). That leaves Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for research (I have a more-or-less stone-cold policy of never working on the weekends, though I sometimes violate it if the wife is out of town). I think on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I average five hours of research per day. That's five hours of straight-out writing (I don't tend to read a lot; a lot of my projects have resulted from stuff I've read for teaching).  As for teaching prep, my pattern has been to put together one lecture first thing in the morning (9am), do research for 2-3 hours, put together a second lecture (around 1pm), do research for another 2-3 hours, finishing up around 5pm. I then save my final lecture prep for the morning before my classes (my first class is at noon). In other words, I mix in my lecture prep on M/W with the 5 hours of research. That's pretty much my schedule.

If I were to guess, I would expect there are probably many people -- primarily those at research institutions, with lighter teaching loads -- who spend a lot more time on research than I do. I also expect there are many people (at teaching institutions?) who spend less time on research. Finally, I expect that there is probably a pretty linear relationship between time spent on research and publishing output. What do you all think? What have your experiences been?

The Natural Lottery & The Free Will Defense

[cross-posted at Think: Just Do It!]

Here's a question that I posed to my students the other day, but I thought that some cocooners might be interested in it, too.

In response to the problem of evil, some distinguish between moral evil and natural evil, and then offer the free will defense as a response to the problem of moral evil. But there seems to be one kind of moral evil that is "natural," and hence beyond the reach of the free will defense. That moral evil is bad luck.

To see why, consider what Rawls says about the natural lottery:

the outcome of the natural lottery is arbitrary from a moral perspective.

the most obvious injustice of the system of natural liberty is that it permits distributive shares to be improperly influenced by these factors [i.e., natural talents and abilities] so arbitrary from a moral point of view. 

If Rawls is right, then natural endowments are arbitrary from a moral point of view, i.e., they are undeserved, which means that the fact that one person is more innately endowed than another is unfair, and hence unjust. This, in turn, leads to the following problem:

1. If natural endowments are arbitrary from a moral point of view, then the fact that one person is more innately endowed than another is unfair, and hence unjust.
2. Natural endowments are arbitrary from a moral point of view.
3. (Therefore) The fact that one person is more innately endowed than another is unfair, and hence unjust. [from (1) & (2)]
4. If natural endowments are gifts from God, then God permits unfair distributions of these gifts.
5. Natural endowments are gifts from God. [as some theists believe]
6. (Therefore) God permits unfair distributions of natural endowments. [from (4) & (5)]
7. If God permits unfair distributions of natural endowments, then God is unjust.
8. (Therefore) God is unjust. [from (6) & (7)]

Since the unfair distribution of natural endowments is an injustice, it it a moral evil. But it is also a moral evil that is "natural" insofar as it is not the result of human actions, but rather the result of the natural lottery. That is why the free will defense will not do in this case.

The problem, then, is that (8) clashes with Western conceptions of God as a good and benevolent being. What do you make of this problem? Is this a problem that theists who advance the free will defense should worry about?

Trust thyself, let it flow, throw it all at the wall, see what sticks...

Everyone works differently -- that we all know. Still, I'd like to share something I think I've learned about research productivity the past four years since I got out of grad school. I guess my hope is that if there's anyone out there who's struggling to produce and/or enjoy research, maybe my story will be helpful.

I used to stress a lot over papers in grad school, and this carried over into my first couple of years out as a faculty member. I frankly didn't get that much written, both because I was either revising old pieces (trying to get them in shape to publish) or spending months trying to get a new piece or two started. I remember, my first year out as as a VAP at the University of British Columbia, I spent an entire semester trying to get a paper on forgiveness off the ground. I read a lot, sat in front of my computer a lot more, tried to write, got frustrated, rinse and repeat, day after day. I was working hard, but frustrating myself to no end. I'm sure there are more than a few of you who can relate.

I did the same for about my first year at the University of Tampa. After about a year of working, I got a draft of a short reply done, as well as (after several months of hard work) a draft of a full-length paper on human rights. I felt like I was beginning to find my feet as a researcher...and then something awful happened: the hard drive on my computer crashed. I...lost...everything. It was a really hard time. About 6-9 months of work down the drain (no, I didn't back anything up. Note to everyone: back up your work!!). Bizarrely, this is probably one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me. No, I'm not being facetious.

When I got a new hard drive, I sat down to attempt to rewrite the reply and human rights article from square-one. I decided I needed to get them out quickly, while they were still fresh in my head...so I spent about a week doing nothing but rewriting them. It was miserable having to do them all over again -- and of course I swore at the time that I would never get them as good as I had them before -- but I got them done.

And then something strange happened. Somehow, the experience of rewriting the papers quickly from scratch just got me simply writing everything quickly from scratch. Whenever I had an idea on something after that, I just put it down to paper...all of it, just letting it flow, never taking longer than a couple of days to a week or two to get an entire paper out. I just did this for a while, just enjoying getting ideas out, not even really worrying or caring about whether they might be publishable. I wrote a paper on vagueness, another on the problem of evil, another on the Categorical Imperative, another on the voting paradox, another on consciousness, another really crazy paper on free will -- just tons of stuff. 

Now here's the thing. I'm sure that a lot of the papers I've written this way are complete garbage. Indeed, I've cast many of them to the scrapheap, never to return to them again. Others I've sent out only to hear really, really nasty things from reviewers about them. But here's the thing: for every 5 bad ideas I've had, there seems to be maybe one good idea. And here's the other thing: even though I probably only get 1 good idea for every 5 bad ideas, I've really enjoyed doing philosophy. And here's the other thing: I think it has made for good work. No, I haven't published in Phil Review or anything, but I, anyway, am proud of much of the work that I've done.

So maybe that's how to do it. Maybe the way to be a productive researcher, publish stuff, and above all enjoy philosophy is to just trust yourself, throw everything at the wall, get stuff out on paper as it comes to you, and see what sticks. Or maybe not, I don't know. We're all different -- and again, in full disclosure, I haven't exactly been a publishing superstar. Still, all I know is that it's a whole lot of fun to stop worrying about publishing and just follow ideas where they lead, however crazy they might seem...and that it's a lot easier to be productive, and enjoy life, when philosophy is fun. If you're struggling and/or not enjoying research, maybe it's worth a try.

"Untrammeled fantasy" and the "dark Satanic mills of mis-education"

While I give Robert Koons full marks for the title of his essay on what ails American univerisities, his essay itself reminds me of the great cornetist Herbert L. Clarke's comment about trumpets. The trumpet, Clarke complained some hundred years ago, is "the nearest thing to the devil in music." Unlike the cornet, the trumpet was used in jazz--and you know what kinds of trouble kids get into when they listen to jazz!

You should read Koons' essay for yourself, but to sum up his complaint: American higher education has lost its way. It used to offer a solid liberal arts education. Under the baleful influence of Bacon and Rousseau (of all people!), our liberal arts tradition has degraded into a technocratic training adulterated by a sentimentalist, relativistic, nihilistic muddle of politically correct, intellecutually bankrupt hogwash masquerading as the humanities. Electives displaced core curricula. Pornography-addicted party animals displaced hardworking, intellectually motivated students. Navel-gazing researchers displaced committed humanistic teachers, churning out esoteric nonsense and teaching courses in intellectually and morally lightweight trivia, rather than the intellectually edifying trivium.

There's a lot to chew on in Koons' essay, but I want to focus on just one issue, since it's the issue most directly relevant to early career philosophers: What role should the philosophical canon play in your teaching? Should you be teaching classic texts in (some or all of) your classes? If you do teach historical texts, should you make an effort to include authors other than dead white men, even if that means spending less time on the "traditional" canon? Are there classical or early modern texts that every well-educated undergraduate philosophy major should read? Which ones? If you do teach the canon, do you assign (translations of) the original texts? Jonathan Bennett's "translations?" Secondary sources? These are questions you might mull over in designing your next syllabus or preparing for job interviews.

My own views on these questions are still evolving. I think the canon is important. I think that a philosophy major, if she has studied ethics beyond the introductory level, should have read at least some Mill, some Kant, and some Aristotle by the time she graduates. Some Plato, Hume, and Hobbes would be good, too. I'd also add Confucius to that list, although he's not in the Western canon. But in its current incarnation, my upper level ethics course only touches on each of these figures briefly. In an earlier incarnation, we worked through all of the Groundwork, all of Utilitarianism, most of the Nicomachean Ethics, and a chunk of the Analects. I tried to balance the historical content with the important concepts and distinctions of ethical and metaethical theory, but I couldn't make it work, and so I refocused the course on contemporary philosophy. And this reveals, I think, one of my fundamental disagreements with Koons: He seems to think that the best way to grok the most important ideas that anyone has ever had is to read the canon. I don't.

 

Teaser: A New Theory of Free Will

I am excited to report that my paper, "A New Theory of Free Will", has been accepted for publication in The Philosophical Forum. Here is the abstract:

This paper shows that the conjunction of several live philosophical and scientific hypotheses – including the holographic principle and multiverse theory in quantum physics, and eternalism and mind-body dualism in philosophy – jointly imply an audacious new theory of free will.  This new theory, "Libertarian Compatibilism", holds that the physical world is an eternally existing array of two-dimensional information – a vast number of possible pasts, presents, and futures – and the mind a nonphysical entity or set of properties that "read" that physical information off to subjective conscious awareness (in much the same way that a song written on an ordinary compact-disc is only played when read by an outside medium, i.e. a CD-player).  According to this theory, every possible physical “timeline” in the multiverse may be fully physically deterministic or physically-causally closed but each person’s consciousness still entirely free to choose, ex nihilo, outside of the physical order, which physically-closed timeline is experienced by conscious observers. 

Although Libertarian Compatibilism is admittedly fantastic, I show that it not only follows from several live scientific and philosophical hypotheses, I also show that it (A) is a far more explanatorily powerful model of quantum mechanics than more traditional interpretations (e.g. the Copenhagen, Everett, and Bohmian interpretations), (B) makes determinate, testable empirical predictions in quantum theory, and finally, (C) predicts and explains the very existence of a number of philosophical debates and positions in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will.  First, I show that whereas traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics are all philosophically problematic and roughly as ontologically “extravagant” as Libertarian Compatibilism – in that they all posit “unseen” processes – Libertarian Compatibilism is nearly identical in structure to the only working simulation that human beings have ever constructed capable of reproducing (and so explaining) every general feature of quantum mechanics we perceive: namely, massive-multiplayer-online-roleplaying videogames (or MMORPGs).  Although I am not the first to suggest that our world is akin to a computer simulation, I show that existing MMORPGs (online simulations we have already created) actually reproduce every general feature of quantum mechanics within their simulated-world reference-frames.  Second, I show that existing MMORPGs also replicate (and so explain) many philosophical problems we face in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will – all while conforming to  the Libertarian Compatibilist model of reality.

I conclude, as such, that as fantastic and metaphysically extravagant as Libertarian Compatibilism may initially seem, it may well be true.  It explains a number of features of our reality that no other physical or metaphysical theory does.

I'll post a penultimate version of the paper in due course (I'm a bit reluctant to do so at the moment, as I'm not sure how publishers feel about this practice -- but I wanted to report the news, especially in light of this report that a handful of physicists at the University of Bonn have developed a method for possibly testing the universe-as-simulation theory. Might physics demonstrate the truth of Libertarian Compatibilism? Only time will tell.;)

Teaching Demo Suggestions?

Anyone with a successful experience on the market have thoughts about how to put together a good teaching demo? I gave a disastrous one this summer, and would be very appreciative for any suggestions. The biggest problem I'm having is translating my teaching style into such a contrived situation. Because I have small classes that meet for two hours twice weekly, I break up every class period into three parts: (1) group work for students based on questions I give them for their readings, which we then discuss as a class, (2) discussion of individual students' reading questions, and finally (3) a traditional lecture, with some give-and-take with the students thrown in for good measure. I've found that this format works like a charm (and my students seem to love it), but I don't know how to really translate it into a teaching demo. Any ideas? What worked for you?

Pedigree and the Market

I'd like to comment here on this comment posted over at the Smoker, as it's something that used to bug me too, but which I have entirely changed my mind about:

A job portfolio contains a CV, writing sample, teaching evaluations, letters of recommendation, etc. In the presence of these other documents, I fail to see the predictive value of institutional pedigree at all. When a graduate student from Princeton who has no publications, no professional presentations, and only one complete chapter of a dissertation is awarded a job for which there were thirty candidates who had all of the above, something is wrong with the profession. And this happens routinely. It is fair to be bitter. The practice prevents the quick rise of talented philosophers, and instead, it perpetuates an unfair elitism in the profession. 

Allow me to explain why I do not think it is fair to be bitter about this. Before I begin, I'd like to preface my remarks with the following self-disclosure: (1) I began my graduate career at Syracuse University, which was ranked #34 on the Gourmet Report at the time, (2) I transferred to Arizona, which was ranked #12 at the time, (3) I was not a "superstar" in graduate school, and (4) I am not a "superstar" now (I don't even have a tenure-track job). I'm disclosing all of this because I want to make it clear that I don't have a horse in this race. I have no illusions about being "better than anyone", and I'm not trying to "make myself feel better." No -- I'm someone, like many people reading this presumably, who has been beaten out for jobs by people from top-10 programs who have no publications.

First point: talent evaluation is a notoriously difficult process in just about every occupation, and there is a good deal of positive evidence that the kind division of labor that is usually set up to distinguish "top talent" from lesser talents -- a division of labor that in most occupations includes some analogue of "pedigree" -- tends to do just that. Here are two examples. 

• First example: the National Football League. How do people end up in the NFL? Well, first they compete to get into top college football programs. Then, they compete in college to demonstrate their comparative talent against other similarly talented individuals. Then, their respective talents are evaluated at a "combine", where top players are compared to lesser players. It's usually pretty obvious at the combine that the division of labor described thus far has been pretty successful: the players who have succeeded the most tend to demonstrate better skills than those at lesser programs. Now, everyone admits that the results of this vast division of labor are defeasible. Only about 50% of first-round draftees out of college actually succeed. Still, this is far better than the success rates of second-rounders, who succeed more often than third-rounders, etc.  Now, of course, there are elways exceptions.  Some people who aren't even drafted out of college (e.g. Kurt Warner) or who are drafted very low (e.g. Tom Brady) succeed beyond everyone's wildest imaginations. It may seem unfair for people who have no professional experience -- e.g. Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, etc. -- to be handed millions of dollars and starting jobs straight out of college...but the evidence is that these "pedigree" players do tend to succeed more than non-pedigree ones. 

• Second example: professional philosophy. There is a similar division of labor. People have to compete to get into top programs. Once in programs, they have to compete with other top people. Thus, there is a division of labor designed to separate top talent from lesser talents. This division of labor also tends to manifest its results in the equivalent of the NFL's "combine." I can tell you from experience that I've seen candidates with no publications come out of places like Rutgers and NYU totally blow my mind. I would also be willing to bet that search committee members would routinely say that many (though by no means all!) candidates from tip-top programs do pretty mind-blowing work, whereas this tends to be the case less often from candidates from lower-ranked programs.

Second point: just as is the case in most occupations -- including the NFL, business, etc. -- there are ample opportunities for people to demonstrate that they are the exception to the rule. On the one hand, there are people from top programs, both in the NFL and in philosophy, who don't make it at the next level because they just don't have the talent people thought they did. On the flip side, there are those who lack pedigree -- John Hawthorne is one obvious philosopher who comes to mind -- who prove they belong at a top level. John (whose student I used to be at Syracuse) started as a graduate student at Syracuse.  If I remember correctly, without funding -- or at least without a fellowship. He wasn't even a "superstar" when he started Syracuse's grad program, and Syracuse itself wasn't a "superstar" program. Yet John eventually did work that impressed the profession-at-large, work that's now landed him at the very top of our profession. And that's the key: the quality of one's work speaks louder than words, pedigree, and all the rest. I believe -- on the basis of what I think is good evidence -- that quality of work tends to win the day, both in philosophy and other areas. If you really are good, people will notice. This is how the Tom Bradys, Kurt Warners, and John Hawthornes of the world got to where they are. Pedigree is important, epistemically -- but the rest of us have every opportunity to show that we are the exceptions.

These, in brief, are the reasons why I don't think it's fair to get bitter over people from top-10 programs getting jobs with no publications. Those people have proven themselves at every step through a vigorous, vast system of divided labor designed explicitly to distinguish top talent. They usually also demonstrate their talent in their work out of graduate school (even if they haven't published yet). Finally, and most importantly, the rest of us have every opportunity to compete: to show that our work and talent is worth taking a chance on. That, at least, is good enough for me. 

Useful Stuff at the Smoker

I think there's some really useful stuff being posted by search-committee members in this post over at the Smoker (along, of course, with the usual griping;). From my experience both as a faculty member at a teaching-oriented SLAC and as a job-seeker, the following comment by an SLAC committee member seems to me spot-on concerning what SLAC departments tend to look for:

I have served on a number of search committees. In my teaching-oriented institution we also focus on CVs and cover letters in the first instance, then look at teaching materials, the writing sample, and recommendations...

Here are some reasons why I did hire specific candidates:
1. Every part of the candidate's materials convinced us that they were applying for - and were genuinely interested in - the specific job at our school, not just any job (yes, the market is in an appalling state, and yes, we are a small and poor teaching institution, but this is a job we think is worth doing).

2. This impression was consistently reinforced at interview

3. The candidate could teach what we needed them to teach, and had the experience and/or skills necessary to flourish in our institution

4. The candidate consistently showed that they care about working with students, that they are able to do so efficiently, and also that they are able to encourage and mentor our specific student population

5. The candidate could communicate effectively and clearly (NB - if you have never done a phone or on-campus interview, please practice interview skills with a trusted senior colleague - some people look wonderful on paper, yet cannot answer simple questions clearly, which immediately makes us wonder how on earth they would communicate effectively with our students)

6. Nobody got any sense that the candidate would act in a discriminatory or confrontational manner (e.g. unprofessionally) in the workplace.

Notice what isn't mentioned here:

• Writing sample.
• Research statement.
• Publications.

Worth noting, I think, if you're one of the many frustrated job seekers out there. This isn't to say that SLAC committees don't care about these things. It is to say that focusing primarily on research may not be the best strategy for a lot of people, at least in terms of finding a permanent, satisfying job. If you're not a publishing superstar (i.e. if you're like most of us), working hard to become a good teacher, good person, and good member of a university community can probably pay real dividends in the end. Fwiw, I don't think research and teaching are an "either/or" proposition. One can do both -- though finding the right balance can be tough.

AOS Question

Quick question for you all: when, exactly, is it sensible to claim a new AOS (and apply for jobs in that area)? Mark Alfano writes that AOS are "areas of philosophy where you plan to do cutting-edge research in the coming years." But when exactly can one sensibly claim this to be the case? I take it that if one has published several papers in a given area, one can sensibly claim a new AOS. However, what if one has only published one paper in the area, but it is a paper that suggests many potential avenues for future research? What'cha all think?

Open Access & Self-Archiving

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about Open Access (OA) and the ridiculous profits that publishers make from our slave labour, not just in philosophy but more generally. This has had an actual impact -- a positive one -- on University and Research Council policies, at least in Europe. For instance, Research Councils UK (RCUK) recently announced their new Open Access Policy. Among other things, the policy states that:

Peer reviewed research papers which result from research that is wholly or partially funded by the Research Councils:
1. must be published in journals which are compliant with Research Council policy on Open Access

In practice, this means that the journal must either be entirely OA, such as Philosophers' Imprint or The Australasian Journal of Logic, or support the option to purchase OA for individual articles for a fee. The latter option is being offered by most big publishers. However, the RCUK policy has an additional clause:

Research Councils will accept a delay of no more than six months between on-line publication and a research paper becoming Open Access, except in the case of research papers arising from research funded by the AHRC and the ESRC where the maximum embargo period is 12 months.

This clause applies even to those papers that are not already OA due to the paying of a separate fee. Philosophy falls within AHRC, and the maximum embargo for any papers emerging from AHRC funded research is 12 months. After that, the paper must be OA. This, I think, should become a standard.

RCUK is not alone with this. The European Commission has also announced a recommendation for a maximum embargo of 6 or 12 months.

Such initiatives are exactly what is needed to change the profession, as not all of us have the possibility to just say "no" when it comes to publishing, i.e. to only publish in full OA journals to begin with. However, there is a compromise available and it has been made especially easy for us philosophers. I'm thinking of the possibility of using PhilPapers as a self-archiving depository, similarly to how arxiv works for physics and the mathematical sciences. At the time of writing, only 3,589 out of the more than half a million papers in the PhilPapers index have been archived in PhilPapers, although many more are available from various self-archives. Not everyone has a web page though, or the desire to self-archive on their own web page, so this is a good, centralized opportunity.

The PhilPapers archive can certainly be used to self-archive after the 12 month embargo has passed -- and it's one way to ensure that your paper is OA -- but I see many papers archived even before that, despite publishers' embargoes. But has anyone ever heard of someone getting into trouble for copyright violation by posting their own work online? We certainly have the power here: the publishers will not be able to function without us.

Besides, PhilPapers has all sorts of nifty tools and features, such as the recently introduced download graphics and rankings:

The above is a screen capture of the Analytics section for my most downloaded paper, "The Law of Non-Contradiction as a Metaphysical Principle", which, incidentally, was published in the full OA journal AJL.

So, if you are in favour of OA, I urge you to self-archive in PhilPapers, there's no reason why it couldn't become the arxiv of philosophy. What's still problematic is that penultimate versions, which people generally archive, don't have correct page numbers and hence can't be properly cited. We can only hope that the pressure from both the funding bodies and academics will help to address this problem as well.

CFP: online undergrad ethics conference

I'm organizing an online ethics conference for undergrads. I'm very excited about this project—I don't think that an online undergrad conference has ever been done before. (If you know of a previous case, please let me know in the comments.) I asked our Head Pupa, Marcus, whether it would be all right if I share this with the Cocoon, and he graciously agreed. So, here goes!

The deadline for paper submissions is Feb. 1 2013. The CFP is here:

http://www.coastalethics.org/

Please share the CFP with your undergrad students, if you think that any of them might be interested! (Eventually, the above link will go to the conference itself. For now, it's just the CFP.)

We are hoping that many or all of the commentators will be full-time philosophers (faculty or grad students). We want this conference to be an opportunity for exceptional undergrads to receive commentary from professionals in the field. So, if you're interested in serving as a commentator, please drop me an email ([email protected]). Note that serving as a commentator involves recording a short (max. 10 min.) video. We will match commentators with papers based on areas of interest. I know that there is an abundance of excellent philosophers and bright teachers here at the Philosopher's Cocoon, so I hope that lots of cocooners will consider getting involved in this project.

New Contributor: Shane Ralston

I'd like to welcome our newest contributor, Shane Ralston. Shane is an assistant professor at Penn State, and has a very wide array of philosophical interests in ethics and social-political philosophy. He has also published an article in Teaching Philosophy, "An Outline for a Brief Teaching Demonstration", that may be helpful for people on the job market. Welcome!

On the two gender-equity petitions

I'd like to weigh in briefly on the debate about the two petitions making the rounds on gender equity in philosophy. For those of you who might not know the back story, Eric Schliesser and Mark Lance have been seeking support for a petition that, among other things, asks its signatories to refuse to accept offers to give a keynote address at any conference where all of the other keynote speakers are male. In response, Brian Leiter and others objected to this "bizarre quota", implying that it is absurd to ask people to refuse keynote offers in all such cases -- especially when only around 16% of senior philosophers are female. Consequently, a new gender-equity petition has been circulated by Jennifer Saul which drops the quota in favor of a general statement that philosophers "should take affirmative steps" in ensure fair representation of female philosophers and other underrepresented groups.

I'd like to explain why I support -- and have chosen to sign Schliesser and Lance's petition -- but not the new one. The way I see it, in general, in order to effect real social change, vague pronouncements are not enough; one must stick one's neck out and set determinate, concrete standards. Here's a simple example from ordinary life. Suppose my wife and I agree that we should spend more time together. So, we sit down and agree, "We will spend more time together." I'm sure those of you with spouses or partners know how this sort of thing usually turns out. We might spend a bit more time together for a couple of weeks -- but in no time there we are, spending time in front of the television instead of spending time together. Why? The answer is simple: without determinate, concrete standards -- as in, "We will spend two hours together every night, no television, etc" -- it's easy to conveniently forget about the agreement.

The way I see it, the same is true of social change. A petition that says, "Philosophers should take steps to ensure fair representation", sets no real standards. Anytime anyone is organizing a conference, they can -- either explicitly or implicitly -- justify an all-male lineup by saying things like, "Well, only 16% of senior figures in this field are female, so finding a female speaker was just too hard." Or, anytime anyone is mulling whether to accept a keynote at an all-male lineup, one can say, "Oh, it's understandable that they don't have a female speaker. After all, only 16% of senior figures in this field are female." This, I propose, is precisely one of the many reasons why so much gender inequity in philosophy persists. It is simply not enough to say that women and other underrepresented populations should be more fairly represented. Saying it accomplishes very little, because in practice -- for all kinds of reasons -- women continue to be underrepresented. In order to get people to actually take steps to achieve greater equity, there must be a commitment to determine, concrete actions. Schliesser and Lance's petition does just that. The new petition doesn't. Also, S&L's petition actually requires people to commit themselves to bear personal burdens for the sake of equity. The new petition does not. Justice is not cost-free. The fact that S&L's petition requires perhaps-uncomfortable sacrifices is not a reason not to favor it. It is a reason to favor it.

Anyway, these are the reasons I support S&L's petition over the new one. I am more than happy to reconsider my position in light of further discussion.

Anyone taking the dissertation-into-book route?

I myself am focusing on getting articles published, some of which have been drawn from the dissertation, some not. Then there are two book projects that build on themes present in the dissertation that I would like to get working on shortly after tenure. But I'm curious to know whether anyone here has decided to go the book-as-means-to-tenure route, so standard in certain other disciplines but not so compulsory in our own. I am assuming that anyone who has is likely making the dissertation into a book, but I'm all the more surprised and intrigued if you have taken on a book project unrelated to your dissertation in your move toward tenure.

I wonder about how hard the dissertation-to-book path is. Is it difficult trying to figure out how to change and improve all that old stuff, or does it feel like the easy task of tidying up now that the monumental task of initial research and writing is all in the past? Are you trying to publish articles from it while also making it into a book? Are you sick of it?

I'm also happy to hear from people about their reasons for *not* going the book route.

The Cocoon on Leiter

I'd like to thank Brian Leiter for his kind mention of us over on Leiter Reports. In just the past few days alone, our readership has multiplied by over a factor of ten (hopefully we can keep it up). Thanks!

A question about replies and follow-ups

Suppose you have a published paper that you want to follow-up on. How do you do that without jeopardizing the "blindness" of the peer review process? You can't simply write, "In my (2012), I argue that p, and in this paper I will expand on my argument for p," right? That's a dead giveaway.

Similarly, suppose you want to reply to a paper that criticizes a paper you have published. How do you do that without jeopardizing the "blindness" of the peer review process? Again, you can't simply write, "John Doe's critique of my (2012) is...," right? That's a dead giveaway.

So what's an author to do?