By Anonymous
Most of my work is in specialist journals, only a minority is in general journals. One reason for this is that the top "general" journals in philosophy aren't general at all, but in reality focus on a few select topics in epistemology, metaphilosophy, philosophy of mind and a handful of other specializations.
As I was on the market last year, I felt increasingly pressure to publish in a "top" general philosophy journal. So I did what Brian Wilson did when he wrote Pet Sounds. Pet Sounds is heralded as an artistically accomplished album, but it was specifically written by Brian Wilson to make the Beach Boys more artistically respectable. Similarly, I wrote a paper on a topic that is of current interest in general philosophy journals. I sent it to a top-10 journal where it was accepted after a brief and very competent review process.
I am wondering whether more philosophers take this "Pet sounds" approach to picking topics to write about, and whether this is in any way problematic. I enjoyed writing the paper, I have an interest in the topic, and I learned a lot from the research. That being said, if the topic wasn't one that was considered of "central philosophical importance", I probably wouldn't have written about it. There are topics I personally find of greater philosophical interest, but they are harder to get published. This, of course, influences what philosophers write about and that worries me too.
This is clearly problematic. In the end it leads to universities increasingly staffed by careerists.
Posted by: anon | 02/04/2015 at 11:22 AM
This is a prisoner’s dilemma. If we all do this, or a sufficiently large number of us, the discipline becomes incredibly boring (up to readers to judge where we stand on this slippery slope…).
Posted by: Lisa | 02/04/2015 at 11:39 AM
What is the top 10 journal to which you refer?
Posted by: a curious cat | 02/04/2015 at 04:56 PM