Is this a (common) problem?

In the comments section of Daily Nous' recent post, "Referees with Attitude Problems", an individual commenting under the handle 'Perplexed Marketeer' writes:

I wonder whether this is a jerk referee comment:

“The paper relies heavily on an account provided by [redacted]. This account hasn’t really been taken up substantively in the literature, so it seems to me ill-advised for the author to rely on it in this paper.”

I wonder how many other papers have been given the same criticism, resulting in a self-fulfilling objection. Doesn’t an account get “taken up substantively in the literature” by accumulated instances of people making use of it? And if the first instances (it’s not like the account is that old–five years or so, and belonging to someone who has continually published in the field since) are rejected because no one else has cited it, that will doubtlessly give the impression that no one finds anything positive about it.

Although I won't belabor the details, something very similar has happened to me before: a referee complained that a paper I submitted appealed to a theory that had not yet had uptake in the literature, implying this was at least one reason to reject the paper. Accordingly, like 'Perplexed Marketeer', I too wonder whether:

1. Whether this sort of thing is a problem, and if so
2. How often it occurs.

Obviously, I cannot settle (2) here--so I would like to ask you, the Cocoon's readers, whether anything similar has ever happened to you. What I can do, though, is reflect on (1) a bit. Is it problematic for a referee to recommend rejecting a paper because the argument or theory the paper invokes has not had substantial uptake in the literature?

On the one hand, I can imagine several arguments in favor of the idea that this is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. First, one might maintain that it is referees' job to recommend for publication articles that readers are likely to have interest in reading--and, if a paper appeals centrally to a theory/argument that people have not shown interest in so far, that is some reason to think readers might not find the new paper of much interest, either. Second, one might maintain that if an argument/theory has not had much uptake in the literature (particularly after a number of years), that is some reason to think that it is objectively not of much interest--as, if it were, people would have noticed and discussed it by now.

Although, as always, I am more than willing to listen, I have to confess that on first blush I find these rationales wanting. First, both rationales seem to me unpersuasive because, or so it seems to me, in the typical case--in Perplexed Marketeer's case, as in mine--the very point of the paper submitted is to argue that the argument/theory in question warrants more attention than it has been so far afforded. Second, the fact that the literature has not yet recognized the importance of an idea, theory, or argument is not itself any good reason to think that it is not important and worthy of more consideration. After all, there can be all kinds of reasons--among them, scientific/philosophical inertia, resistance to new ideas, and (potentially) preference for ideas from "famous" scholars--why a good, important idea might not receive due attention. And indeed, a widely publicized recent study of the scientific literature, "Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?", suggests as much: namely, that while "famous names" are alive, the scientific literature tends to revolve around their ideas, squelching progress, whereas when they die, more new ideas, innovation, and yes, new "names" begin to flow into the literature. Here's the abstract:

Consistent with previous research, the flow of articles by collaborators into affected fields decreases precipitously after the death of a star scientist (relative to control fields). In contrast, we find that the flow of articles by non-collaborators increases by 8% on average. These additional contributions are disproportionately likely to be highly cited. They are also more likely to be authored by scientists who were not previously active in the deceased superstar's field. Overall, these results suggest that outsiders are reluctant to challenge leadership within a field when the star is alive and that a number of barriers may constrain entry even after she is gone. Intellectual, social, and resource barriers all impede entry, with outsiders only entering sub fields that offer a less hostile landscape for the support and acceptance of "foreign" ideas.

This, I think, raises the biggest worry to have about the practice of referees (if, again, it is a common practice) recommending rejecting papers on grounds that they have "not had uptake." All things being equal, or so it seems to me, the kinds of ideas and arguments that are most likely to have uptake in the literature are mainstream ones by well-known figures in the field. And indeed, or so it seems to me, citation data in philosophy broadly confirm this: wide swaths of literature--whether it is the metaphysics literature on ground, the political philosophy literature on justice, etc.--tend to cluster around a very small number of "name figures." As Kieran Healy put it, "On the average hardly anyone is getting cited, be they man or woman." Given that the philosophical literature appears to revolve around arguments/theories by a relatively small, select number of people, the practice of recommending rejecting arguments that "have not had uptake in the literature" will tend to exclude...well, just about all of us from having our ideas taken up in the literature. But that, it seems to me, is precisely what we should not want. Each paper should be judged on its own merits--and, if a paper makes a strong case that an idea, theory, or argument should have uptake in the literature, referees should recommend publication for precisely that reason--so that ideas that warrant discussion but have not yet been discussed begin to receive the uptake they are due!

In any case, I'm still curious: how pervasive is this phenomenon? Have you had a referee recommend rejecting a paper on the grounds that it engages with or develops an idea that "hasn't had uptake in the literature"?

Comments

[GF-A]

I think the reasonableness of the referee's complaint would depend on just how heterodox, contested, or 'weird' the new view is.

For example, imagine a paper that aims to demonstrate some claim about the nature of mental states p. This paper argues that p follows both from dualist and monist conceptions of the mental. Compare that with a second paper which also aims to establish p, but argues for p instead only from "trialism," the view that there is mind, body, and some third thing (spirit?). And this paper does not argue for p from monism or dualism.

I'm guessing most folks would agree that, ceteris paribus, the first paper would be more publishable than the second.

p.s. I did not realize this until just now, but trialism is actually a position in the literature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trialism

[Michael Cholbi]

I recently rejected a paper with the rough format "A criticizes B, C criticizes B's criticisms of A" for the reason you mention -- that A's criticisms seem not to have garnered much attention or gained any traction in the field.(I'd also add that A was not a marginal figure in the discipline.) I don't think that fact is a categorical reason for rejection, for as you point out, there can be explanations of why some views or theory are neglected in the field that do not suggest the views/theory are wrongheaded or obviously implausible. That said, I think authors bear the burden, when they discuss views/theories that are less well known, of demonstrating that they *merit* more attention -- that they differ from what's already been defended, deploy a new methodology or argument strategy, etc. The reasons why a view/theory has been overlooked can be legitimate or illegitimate -- with space so tight in journals, authors need to convince me that it's been overlooked for bad reasons.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi GF-A: I don't think how "weird", heterodox, or contested a view should in any sense be a determining factor of whether it should be included in philosophical discussion. What matters are the arguments.

In physics, Relativity was "weird", heterodox, and contested when Einstein proposed it--yet it warranted discussion, because the reasons given for the theory were strong. Similarly, in philosophy, "weird", heterodox, and contested views can have good *arguments* for them, and should be taken seriously in the literature for that reason. Indeed, many philosophical views that become dominant were at one time considered too strange to take seriously. One cannot help but think, for instance, of Peter Singer's summary of the initial public and philosophical response to Mary Wollstonecraft's defense of equal rights for women.

As Singer explains in "All Animals Are Equal", "When Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of later feminists, published her Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, her ideas were widely regarded as absurd, and they were satirized in an anonymous publication entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. The author of this satire (actually Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Wollstonecraft's reasonings by showing that they could be carried one stage further. If sound when applied to women, why should the arguments not be applied to dogs, cats, and horses? They seemed to hold equally well for these "brutes"; yet to hold that brutes had rights was manifestly absurd; therefore the reasoning by which this conclusion had been reached must be unsound, and if unsound when applied to brutes, it must also be unsound when applied to women, since the very same arguments had been used in each case."

The salient question is not whether an idea, argument, or theory is "weird", heterodox, or contested. It is whether the person who defends it has a good *argument* for it--which is just to say that the paper that defends the view should be judged on its own merits.

I think the "trialism" example you give is compelling only to the extent that the arguments themselves for the strange view aren't very compelling.

[Jerry Green]

If the only criticism were that a paper relied on an as of yet underdiscussed paper, then I don't think that would be grounds for rejection. But I suppose there's a difference between 'I assume underdiscussed view X, and X -> Y' vs. 'If X is right, one consequence is that Y'. I don't want to accuse the OP of this, but one trend I've seen in talks lately is to stipulate the controversial bits as a starting assumption, and spend the talk following out pretty trivial implications of those assumptions. So I wonder how much this could be resolved just by framing things a different way.

That said, I do worry about a possible Catch-22 here. If you rely too much on an underdiscussed view, you risk a referee thinking that the paper isn't of sufficient interest (though Marcus is definitely right about the self-fulfilling nature of what philosophers find interesting). If you rely instead on a more thoroughly vetted view, you risk a referee thinking that the paper doesn't make a sufficient contribution to the debate.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Michael: Thanks for weighing in - I am in complete agreement!

[GF-A]

Hi Marcus --

Thanks! I basically agree with most of what you say here. I of course agree that an unorthodox view that has good evidence for it should be accepted, because of exactly the kinds of examples you mention.

But my point was rather this: A paper that works from ultimate premises that are widely shared by the intended audience is ceteris paribus better than a paper that works from ultimate premises that are not widely shared by the intended audience. And, especially for articles or books that have been around a while, not-widely-discussed seems like it could be correlated with not-widely-shared (though there are of course lots of particular counter-examples to this generalization).

So in the 'Trialism' example, I of course agree that one should accept Trialism or not based on the evidence, and a manuscript that gave good arguments for Trialism should be accepted. But I thought that was not the kind of manuscript that was under consideration. Rather, I thought the original commenter's example was more like a paper that argued for p, after arguing "If Trialism, then p," but not giving substantive arguments for Trialism itself much beyond "See so-and-so (2014) for a defense of Trialism." If I have misunderstood the example manuscript, I apologize.

But in the case of a manuscript like the one I described, I'm curious about one other thing. I'm imagining this manuscript makes a reasonable case for "If Trialism, then p," and merely cites the published article on Trialism in support of Trialism, and concludes that p. What do you think the referee should do? Does the referee in this case have an obligation to go to the published article defending Trialism, and make a judgment about how good the arguments for Trialism are there? And if the referee finds these arguments (or maybe one of the replies to objections) wanting, is it then OK for the referee to reject the current manuscript, on the basis of the already-published article's weaknesses? (I don't really have strong opinions one way or the other about such a case, but I am curious.)

POSTSCRIPT: I see now that JG's comments are very much in the spirit of what I was trying to say here. Sorry for the overlap! I think JG's first case is a less publishable paper than the second case (ceteris paribus).

[Referee's thoughts]

As a referee I have suggested that *one* of the reasons a paper should be rejected is because it builds on or criticizes a view that is largely absent in the literature. The onus is on the author to make a case that a view is worth addressing (or building on). I am open, though, to being convinced. But it is odd to take on a neglected view, and then criticize it thoroughly. One is left asking: Why?
As an author, I have published papers that focus on a single person's view or argument, even the view of someone who is relatively "unimportant" in the larger community (for example, someone whose work is cited maybe 1/4 as often as my own). But when I do that I must provide some motivation for thinking their view or argument is worth our attention (that is, worth the attention of the readers of the journal).

[Marcus Arvan]

Referee's thoughts: Seems right to me.

In "Perplexed Marketeer's" case, though, it seems (at least from their description) that the referee was not even open to being convinced. "Perplexed" wrote, "[In the paper] I suggest that philosopher Y’s expanded framework lends more clarity to the central issue and use it to frame my criticism...I would have been fine with a reviewer giving some justification for the claim that the expanded framework is not necessary or implausible on its own merit. The only reason given, though, that the framework should not be implemented was that it had not been discussed enough in the literature."

[Marcus Arvan]

GF-A: Thanks for your reply. I think we may be talking past each other so far, as (following "Perplexed Marketeer") I have a very different type of example in mind.

The case in question is not (A) basing an argument on premises not widely accepted by one's argument, or (B) merely teasing out the implications of such a view. Rather, the kind of case at issue is one where the author makes a *case* to the reader--on the basis of premises they think the reader is apt to accept--that the under-discussed idea/theory/argument has much to say for it (perhaps, by demonstrating how it has compelling implications for a new topic), but the referee nevertheless advocates rejecting the paper *merely* because the idea/argument/theory has not had uptake (i.e. been discussed at all) in the literature.

When it comes to the case you raise, I think the answer is clear. You write, "I'm imagining this manuscript makes a reasonable case for "If Trialism, then p," and merely cites the published article on Trialism in support of Trialism, and concludes that p. What do you think the referee should do?"

I think it's clear what a referee should do. It Trialism has not been well-motivated--if existing arguments for it are based on premises that readers in general (including the referee) don't find persuasive-then a paper simply teasing out, "If Trialism, then P", can (and, in my view, should) be rejected as philosophically undermotivated. But again, this is not the kind of case I meant to discuss. I meant to discuss the kind of case where the author *argues* that an under-discussed idea/view/argument has much to say for it, and thus, warrants uptake and discussion.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi JG: As I explained in my reply to GF-A, that's not the kind of case at issue in the OP. The case is not one of simply teasing out the implications of an under-discussed view. Rather, it is a new paper *arguing* that the under-discussed idea/argument/theory warrants discussion/uptake in the literature because (A) there's a compelling argument for it, and (B) the idea/argument/theory substantially illuminates philosophical issues beyond those recognized in the initial work presenting it.