A Transformation

Laurie Paul's paper on the transformative experience of having children has been enjoying a good deal of attention. Her discussion got me thinking about another transformative experience -- one that my dissertation supervisor, Tom Christiano, discussed with me around the time I was finishing up grad school.

Tom told me that there's a certain transformation one undergoes the first few years in the profession once you're out of grad school. If I remember correctly, he said the transformation is hard (if not impossible) to describe, but that it's really quite wonderful -- and that it involves coming to feel at home in your own skin as a philosopher.  Now that I've been out of grad school several years, I'd like to try to describe to you what my experience of "the transformation" has been. I'm curious to see if others have had a similar experience. I also wonder whether relating the experience might be helpful.

I want to be clear that I don't consider the transformation -- or transformative experience -- I've think I've had to be any sort of honorific. I don't think the experience has, say, made me a better philosopher. Truth be told, I think I probably am what I've always been as a philosopher, warts and all. Who knows? Maybe I've become a worse philosopher. I expect there are some who would say so. Anyway, the transformation I think I've experienced isn't one of "becoming a better philosopher." It's something else entirely.

What is it, then? Here's a first stab. When I was in graduate school, I was always thinking of how others evaluated my work: my profs, my fellow students, and certainly my committee. Then, during my first few years out of grad school, I was still mostly concerned with others: reviewers in particular (viz. "What do I need to do to get this piece published?"). At some point, though -- and I think it was after a few publications, when the terror that I'd never publish finally wore off -- I started to care a lot less about what other people thought of my work. Yes, I still wanted to publish, but mostly I wanted to satisfy myself. For the first time in well over a decade (of undergraduate studies, then grad school, then post-grad) -- for really the first time in my philosophical life -- there was one, and only one, person whose opinion of my work I truly, truly valued: mine. This isn't to say that I stopped listening to what people had to say. Quite the contrary, I think I was actually more obstinate as a student (when I was trying to "prove myself" to others). The change wasn't one of ceasing to care what others think; rather, it was finally regarding myself as the final arbiter of who I should be as a philosopher -- what I should research, how I should research it, etc. It was so...liberating. The only person I really felt I had to satisfy was me. (Of course, I haven't lost sight of the fact that I still need to satisfy others: I need/want a tenure-track job, then tenure, etc. I'll come back to this).

That's a first pass of the transformation. Here's a second. When I was in grad school, there was a certain kind of expectation about the "kind" of philosopher I should be. I was "raised" in the way that graduate programs raise their students. I was taught to write very targeted papers on single, small points. I was taught to prioritize rigor over raw philosophical ambition. Moreover, while I've repeatedly questioned our discipline's prioritization of rigor (over ambition), I'm actually very thankful that my program "raised" me to prioritize clarity and rigor. Clarity and rigor are important. I really do strive for them in all of my work. But here's the thing. The longer I've been out of grad school, the more I've begun to ask myself the question: "What kind of philosopher do I want to be? What kind of philosopher am I well-suited to be?" I tried being an "underlaborer" my first few years out of grad school, publishing small, rigorous papers on very targeted topics. Yet, while I published a couple of replies this way, for the most part it just didn't work for me. I routinely had papers rejected, and I found it unfulfilling. It wasn't the kind of philosopher I wanted to be. The thing that has always "turned me on" in philosophy is insight -- seeing things in new and different ways. It's everything I love about philosophy. It's why I could (and do!) read people like Kant day and night. They saw new solutions to old problems (and indeed, new problems!). And so -- in large part because the "small ball" approach wasn't working for me -- I started to do what comes naturally to me: try to figure out what I think "everyone" in a given debate is "missing." I started, in other words, to pursue "big ideas." And who knows? Maybe it's a mistake in terms of professional success. I haven't published in top journals. Heck, I don't even have a tenure-track job. And maybe I'm wrong about a lot. And sloppy. I don't know. What I do know is that I'm the kind of philosopher I want to be. Even if I'm wrong about everything -- embarrassingly wrong, even -- I just don't have that point-of-view I had as a grad student (viz. "What do I need to do to satisfy everyone -- profs, reviewers, etc.?"). The only person I want to satisfy is me. And it feels liberating.

That's a second pass. Here's a third. I've heard from many people that a certain writing style is recognizably "grad-student-ish" and another one comes across as "professional." What's the difference? The best I can tell is this. One of the things that struck me when I was unpublished about the published work of some (very successful) people I had been in grad school with was just how...assured...their writing was. They didn't waste time on literture reviews, or cite the literature like crazy, etc. Their papers read effortlessly, even rather cavalierly, to my eyes. I didn't know how they got away with it, but for I while I just tried to copy it. Then I think I "got" it (that is, why they did it). When you're a grad student, you have to prove to your profs that you know and grasp the literature -- and you do this by explaining and citing it ad nauseum. However, when you write a professional paper, your readers expect you to be a master of the literature. You don't have to muck around giving a literature review: you just present your argument as cleanly as possible, only citing/discussing the literature when absolutely necessary. You don't have to "prove yourself" to the reader. You just get on with it...which again, is rather liberating.

That's a third pass. Here's the final one: the "transformation" is simply feeling at home in one's philosophical skin. You may never be a David Lewis (not to mention a Kant!). You may be a particularly rigorous type. You may be a "big idea" type. You may not tolerate any sloppiness in your work. Or you may. At some point you realize...the choices -- all of them -- are yours, and yours alone. Yes, of course, there are risks, as there are with any choice. The philosopher you choose to be -- the philosopher you are -- may or may not fit others' conceptions of what you should be. My point is: there's a point after grad school at which you realize, it's your choice and your choice alone about the path you pursue as a philosopher. Sometimes it's scary...but it is also liberating. Or so say I.

What say you?

Comments

[Rob Gressis]

I think it's funny that there are 11 comments on your profession depression post and 0 comments on this, more optimistic one.