The Philosophers' Cocoon

Reader query on how to handle a long journal turnaround time

In the comments section of our newest "how can we help you?" post, Anonymous PostDoc writes: 

I have a question/query about a journal submission that is taking a long time.... (let me explain)

In June 2016 i submitted a paper to a journal that i will not name (it's in the lower half of the Leiter top 20 generalists). After waiting for nearly 6 months i contacted the journal to ask about my submission. I was told at the time that they had struggled to find reviewers but were currently in the search for one.

Another month or two passed and i contacted again to ask if there had been any progress. I was then told that an 'expert reviewer' had been found - and while it would take another 6 weeks for a report/decision to come in, would i be ok with this. Obviously I agreed.

Another 2 months came and went and after inquiring again, i was told that a 'report was in', and to expect a decision soon/shortly. Unfortunately the journals idea of soon/shortly bears little resemblance to its common usage, and again around 6 weeks passed by.

How can we help you? (July 2017)

I'm leaving for a two-week vacation tomorrow, and probably won't be posting much until I return on August 12th. Because the job-market should be rapidly ramping up soon (some permanent jobs are already being posted on philjobs), I thought it might be good to run a "how can we help you?" in my absence.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the series, this is a chance for you to post openly or anonymously in the comment section below on anything you need help with (questions about the job-market, profession, publishing, teaching, etc.). After you post your query in the comments section, I will then post new threads for readers to discuss your query. 

Please do fire away. We're here to help!

Dissertation-defense blues?

A reader writes in:

I am a Ph.D. student in a PGR-unranked doctoral program with excellent faculty members from PGR-ranked doctoral programs (e.g. Western Ontario, NYU, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins). I also have excellent philosophers in my dissertation committee. I recently passed my doctoral defense. I am actually glad that I passed it. But I somehow feel disappointed. Although I submitted a dissertation that is good enough to pass, I poorly performed during the oral defense. I am just wondering whether it is unusual for anyone to pass the defense even if he or she poorly defended his or her dissertation.

I am curious to hear what others think. Here are my two cents...

Article recommendations?

What's the best philosophy article you've read recently? Why? Go! :)

CFP: PPE Society

This is just a quick announcement that the PPE Society has a call for proposals and submissions for its second annual meeting. Having presented at the first annual meeting this year, I can say it is a fantastic conference -- one of the best I've ever been to!

Anti-procrastination tips?

In the comments section of last week's post, "Structuring unstructured time", UK Reader writes:

This is the thing I've struggled most with since moving from a non-academic job into a PhD program. In particular, I find what you describe as 'Commitment. Put deliberate effort into meeting this goal...' incredibly difficult to maintain!

It's not that I'm not committed. Of course I am. But in academia one has to be self-motivating to an extent rarely found in other walks of life. No one's there to make sure you're up and at your desk by 9am each morning, no one's going to disapprove if you take yet another unscheduled break, no one's going to give you a pat on the back for working steadily for several hours and achieving a breakthrough... Rewards and punishments and enthusiasm and energy all have to come from within. This is totally different from lines of work in which you work with colleagues. Humans are social creatures and, in many respects, the life of an academic is very unnatural. We're not really designed to sit alone at a desk with only our own brains for company day-in-day-out.

In short, I'm pretty good any goal-setting. But I'm terrible at holding myself to actually meeting my goals. It's so easy to just sort of drift by, permanently feeling slightly guilty for one's endless procrastination.

I wonder if you have any tips on how to deal with this malaise. 

I'm very curious to hear what tips readers have. I used to be a terrible procrastinator. As I've explained before, at one point in grad school (after comp exams_, things got so bad that I didn't get anything of consequence done for about a year-and-a-half! Since then, however, I've gotten very good at avoiding procrastination. Although (as usual) I cannot claim that my strategies will work for everyone, allow me to share a number of tips that I have found work for me:

Sunday songs

Query: best undergraduate mind/metaphysics textbook(s)?

I'm scheduled to teach my first metaphysics & mind course in well over a decade (!) next spring. Suffice it to say, my knowledge of metaphysics and mind textbooks is a bit out of date. Anyone willing to help me out? Because it will be an intro/lower-level course with a good number of majors and non-majors, but I like my courses to be challenging, I'm looking for a textbook that is sophisticated but also accessible, ideally presenting metaphysics and mind problems to undergrads in a way that will "hook" them.

Anyone have any good suggestions? Many thanks in advance to those of you who chime in!

Structuring unstructured time

In the comments section of Trevor's recent post, "Dissertation Reflection Series, Part 2: A Different Kind of Project", a reader ("cw") wrote:

For me, #1 was the biggest problem. I'm not good with unstructured time. I found myself rushing at the end of each semester to have something to show my director.

I should have set more meeting points for us, and clearer expectations for each meeting. I'm sure my director would have gone for it, but I didn't ask.

In my experience, this is a problem a lot of graduate students have, and for roughly the reasons Trevor gives. Throughout the first part of grad school (e.g. course work, comp exams, etc.), one has fairly clear deadlines. Yet, when it comes to the dissertation stage and publishing, one no longer has such clear deadlines--and one can end up wasting a lot of time getting little done. I know from experience! After my comp exams, I basically got nothing of import done for about a year-and-a-half. And it wasn't for lack of trying. I was reading. I was trying to write. I just wasn't being effective. And I know I'm not alone in this. I am currently mentoring a PhD student who excelled in graduate school...until passing comp exams (just like me!). Fortunately, I have learned a lot about how to deal effectively with "unstructured time", and as I will explain below, the strategies I have developed have sound empirical support.

I didn't know this until my spouse (who works in IO-Psychology), but one of the more well-confirmed theories in her field is known as Goal-Setting Theory. In rough outline, Goal-Setting Theory posits that specific and ambitious daily and weekly goals lead to higher performance than easier or more general goals. The basics of Goal-Setting Theory have been inductively confirmed by over 400 studies spanning over 25 years. More exactly, the theory recommends (here I quote):

Tuesday tunes

Should journals rethink word-limits?

I had a spirited (and surprisingly contentious!) discussion on social media the other week on journal word-limits. The conversation began with a friend of mine--a well-published and respected philosopher in his AOS--noting that he had to cut down a 16K word article to meet a 7K word-limit. As someone who tends to write long pieces myself, I noted that what typically happens in cases like this is one cuts one's paper down to meet a limit only to find out 5 or 6+ months later--after the paper goes through peer-review--that reviewers advocate either rejection or revise-and-resubmit because the paper fails to deal with problems the longer version of it did deal with. In revise-and-resubmit cases, this often requires the author to put back in material that was in the longer version to begin with, requiring authors, reviewers, and editors to do more work that they might have had to do if the author had just been able to submit the better, longer version to begin with!

In other words, in my experience, journal word-limits often end up wasting everyone's time. They make authors waste a ton of time cutting down articles, and they waste reviewers' and editors' time by having them review--and, in revise-and-resubmits, review multiple times--inferior, shorter versions of what were previously better, longer papers. Because I think good philosophy papers come in many different shapes and sizes, and the most relevant thing is whether a paper is any good, I'm inclined to think it would be better all-around--wasting fewer people's time--for journals not to have hard word-limits but instead be willing to accept papers of any length short of a book (i.e. 20K words or so). Preemptively precluding authors from submitting longer papers--as many journals currently do--seems to me to only stand in the way of philosophical inquiry, making things more difficult on everyone, particularly authors who write longer, more ambitious papers (as it gives them fewer venues to publish in).

Are research statements a thing of the past?

In the comments section of my recent call for additional mentors for the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program, Amanda wrote:

I applied to over 60 jobs last year, both research and teaching, and very few (maybe 5) asked for research statements. I think that is becoming a thing of the past, and one is expected to say a few words about their research in their cover letter instead.

Can others confirm whether this is true? Are research statements becoming a thing of the past? If so, why?

Dissertation Reflection Series, Part 2: A Different Kind of Project

In the first post of this series, I highlighted four factors that made the dissertation stage of graduate school challenging for me. In this post, I focus on how the dissertation differs from other graduate work and why these differences tend to make writing the dissertation more difficult than the other stages of graduate school.

Difference #1: Lack of Rigid Structure and Concrete Deadlines

The first few years of graduate school are highly structured. You take courses with clear reading lists and concrete deadlines. You have conversations about the course material every week, and the professor will often give you insight into the kinds of topics that would make for good papers. Often, you’ll get some feedback on in-progress work (through peer review, presentations, etc.) during the course.

Reader query on the philosophy-job wiki

A reader recently wrote in:

Regarding your excellent blog philosophers cocoon, have you ever thought of trying to use it as a way to generate some momentum for the creation of a stable, well-publicised philosophy jobs market wiki? The current one is something of a bust, and its URL has been down (at least for me) the past few days, possibly signalling the end. 

Of course, my suggestion is that you take this on! But I do think the job market wiki is helpful so that candidates, especially isolated ones from small departments,  better know where they stand re: various applications. I wonder if you might consider making a post on this as a way to generate interest in its creation and maintenance. It's kind of strange that this thing has already had its heyday pre the proliferation of social networks and greater uptake of the internet, suggesting that with a bit of enthusiasm (and a great deal of dedication on the part of one or more persons), it could be a real hit!

Unfortunately, I have already taken quite a bit on--and have some important deadlines to make in the next few month--so starting up and maintaining a job-wiki isn't feasible for me at the moment. However, since I suspect there probably more than a few job-candidates out there who would like a wiki, I figured it might be a good idea to share this post for discussion to see how much demand there is for a wiki and whether there's anyone out there who would do it. I would also be happy to advertise the wiki here if and when it happens.

Do people want a wiki? If so, is there anyone who might be willing to set up and run one?

Cocoon mentoring program: call for additional mentors

Helen and I are happy to report that the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program has matched about 20 mentors/mentee pairs so far this season. However, we currently face a shortage of suitable mentors for the mentees still have to match. As a result, I'd like to put out another call for mentors. We could particularly use mentors with the following backgrounds:

• AOS: 19th/20th Century Continental (Phenomenology) (x2)
• AOS: Social and Political (Critical Theory) (x2)
• AOS: philosophy of language
• AOS: metaphysics (x4)
• AOS: philosophy of mind (2)
• AOS: aesthetics (x2)
• AOS: philosophy of biology
• AOS: cognitive science
• AOS: Buddhism/Chinese Philosophy
• Experience working and applying for jobs in Europe
• Experience working and applying for jobs in the UK

If you're a tenure-stream faculty member in any of these areas, all you need to do is sign up here to be a mentor. Many thanks in advance to anyone who's willing to help out. We're very appreciative!

Saturday Songs

Rightness as Fairness and another study on psychopaths & future-directed mental time-travel

Readers may recall that my 2016 book, Rightness as Fairness: A Moral and Political Theory, argues that morality emerges from a specific form of "mental time-travel": our ability to imagine and care about different possible futures. Specifically, I argue that morality--specifically, the rationality of obeying four principles of fairness--emerges from an adaptive form of gambling avoidance that makes us concerned less about the likely future outcomes of our actions, and instead overwhelmingly concerned with avoiding unlikely bad outcomes. As I have mentioned before, there is already quite bit of empirical evidence that coheres well with this picture. As I have also mentioned before, Rightness as Fairness specifically predicts (on pp. 67-70) that psychopaths behave immorally because they are overwhelmingly concerned with likely outcomes in the near future, lacking the mental-time travel capacities that lead us to imagine and aim to avoid unlikely bad outcomes.

In addition to another recent study cohering with this picture, a new study in Neuron shows that:

[B]rain scans of nearly 50 prison inmates...help explain why psychopaths make poor decisions that often lead to violence or other anti-social behavior. What they found, he said, is psychopath's brains are wired in a way that leads them to over-value immediate rewards and neglect the future consequences of potentially dangerous or immoral actions...

What they found, Buckholtz said, was people who scored high for psychopathy showed greater activity in a region called the ventral striatum - known to be involved in evaluating the subjective reward - for the more immediate choice.

"So the more psychopathic a person is, the greater the magnitude of that striatal response," Buckholtz said. "That suggests that the way they are calculating the value rewards is dysregulated - they may over-represent the value of immediate reward."...

"We mapped the connections between the ventral striatum and other regions known to be involved in decision-making, specifically regions of the prefrontal cortex known to regulate striatal response," he said. "When we did that, we found that connections between the striatum and the ventral medial prefrontal cortex were much weaker in people with psychopathy."

That lack of connection is important, Buckholtz said, because this portion of the prefrontal cortex role is thought to be important for 'mental time-travel' - envisioning the future consequences of actions. There is increasing evidence that prefrontal cortex uses the outcome of this process to change how strongly the striatum responds to rewards. With that prefrontal modulating influence weakened, the value of the more immediate choice may become dramatically over-represented...

The effect was so pronounced, Buckholtz said, that researchers were able to use the degree of connection between the striatum and the prefrontal cortex to accurately predict how many times inmates had been convicted of crimes.

Ultimately, Buckholtz said, his goal is to erase the popular image of psychopaths as incomprehensible, cold-blooded monsters and see them for what they are - everyday humans whose brains are simply wired differently.

"They're not aliens, they're people who make bad decisions," he said. "The same kind of short-sighted, impulsive decision-making that we see in psychopathic individuals has also been noted in compulsive over-eaters and substance abusers. If we can put this back into the domain of rigorous scientific analysis, we can see psychopaths aren't inhuman, they're exactly what you would expect from humans who have this particular kind of brain wiring dysfunction."

I leave it to readers to decide how well these and other studies reflect on Rightness as Fairness, and whether they should lead philosophers to take its account of morality seriously.

Reader query on teaching-intensive visiting positions

In the comments section of our most recent "How can we help you?" post, Recent Grad writes:

Given that the job market is about to start-up again, I have a question I'd love to hear some views on. I just graduated from a lower-ranked Leiter program without any publications (I know!). I have two papers under review (including one that is approaching a 12-month review time) and am currently drafting more. Given my low Leiter rank and current lack of publications, I expect I'd be most competitive for visiting positions, if that. My question is about taking high-teaching load visiting positions--let's say high prep 4/4's or low-prep 5/5's--vs. low teaching load adjunct positions that leave time for research (there's plenty of adjunct work to be had where I am). I've heard advice going both ways. Younger faculty tell me it's always worth it getting a VAP position on my cv, even if that means teaching something like a 5/5. Older faculty warn me against the, well, dismal prospects of life under something like a 5/5. Any thoughts?

Excellent query! Here are a few of my own quick thoughts.

How I learned to love writing philosophy: 3 steps

In his post last week, "Should You Go to Graduate School in Philosophy (Revisited)", Trevor wrote:

Now let’s suppose you answer this first question in the affirmative – you think the grad school experience will be worth it even if things go unfavorably for you sometime during the program or during your time on the job market. The next question to ask – one that I did not consider when I was contemplating whether to go to graduate school – is this: “Do I deeply enjoy writing philosophy?” Like the previous question, if you cannot answer this one with a sincere yes, then I think going to graduate school is unwise.

If you enjoy reading philosophy or talking philosophy, that’s great. But what really matters to your long-term success in graduate school is whether you will write philosophy...

In response to Trevor's post, an anonymous commenter ('O') wrote: "I think the author is exagerating [sic]. How many people do you know who enjoy writing philosophy? I know very few, even among professors." However, my experience--and Trevor's evidently--is very different. Like Trevor, many of the people I know who have done well in the profession appear to be people who sincerely love writing, and do a ton of it. Not only that. Whereas the times that I struggled the most in my career--both during graduate school and during my early career after receiving my PhD--were the times that I didn't get much written because I didn't enjoy it. I only began to publish successfully and do better on the job market once I learned to really enjoy writing philosophy, just like Trevor says. And, make no mistake, I really love it. As I noted in a comment: "I absolutely love writing philosophy. I wake up just about every weekday looking forward to doing it." This is, if anything, an understatement. I'm half-ashamed to admit it, but often enough if I'm having a boring weekend I actually can't wait for Monday around so I can start drafting a new paper! I'm a nerd, I know, but it's true. :)

Anyway, after writing my comment, a few people asked me how I came to love writing. First, Amanda asked:

Marcus, did you always love writing, or did it change once you decided to write about big ideas instead of the stuff others told you to write about? I think I am going to change my writing style (i.e. write about what I enjoy writing about, and in the style I enjoy) after I finish one last round of revisions for the "try to please the authorities" paper. I hope I have more fun.

Then, after responding to Amanda, I received a similar query via email about how to write more efficiently. Because learning to love writing was such an important part of my professional development--and because at least a couple of people were interested in the answers--I thought I might write a short post on these issues. So, here goes!

Reader query on publishing outside of philosophy

In the comments section of our most recent "how can we help you?" post, a UK reader writes:

I'm mid-way through my graduate student career, and am working pretty squarely in mainstream epistemology. However, I also have some other non-philosophical academic interests - particularly in history and literature. I've actually written up a couple of papers, one in history, one in literature, and have been told by academics in both disciplines that these papers have a shot at being published in reputable history/literature journals. My question is: Should I try and publish them?

Now, I know that my focus should be on publishing philosophy papers, and it absolutely is. But I do also have this other work already completed, and it seems a shame not to make something of it. So my question really is: Could having publications in (high-ranked) history and literature journals hurt my philosophy job chances (assuming I also have publications in philosophy journals)? Perhaps it might suggest I'm not committed enough to philosophy? Alternatively, could it help my chances? Or is it completely neutral? One thing I'd add is that, although the papers would be pretty squarely in history and literature, I do have a story to tell about how the issues they explore link up to my philosophical work. And I do have a area-of-compentence [sic] in aesthetics, which might perhaps tie-in nicely to having a paper published on literature.

I'm curious to hear what everyone thinks. My sense is that the risks and benefits of publishing outside of philosophy are probably neutral on balance...provided one is actually publishing successfully in philosophy. Because hiring and tenure decisions, both at research and teaching institutions, will presumably be based on one's performance in philosophy (since that is the area one is hired in), I suspect there are few professional benefits to publishing outside of philosophy--but I could be wrong about this. In any case, my sense is that if one wants to publish outside of philosophy, and doing so is at least consistent with one's other career goals, there's probably little harm in it.

But this is just my sense. What's yours?

Reader query on planning for a "plan B"

In the comments section of our most recent "how can we help you?" post, Another Prospective Graduate Student writes:

I am also a prospective PhD student. Given the state of the job market, I have thought that should I get into graduate school (especially if at a school with weaker placement rates) that I should prepare myself for a plan B career while I'm in graduate school. But while I have seen lots of stories about what paths philosophy graduate students take--from law school to management consulting to programming to the civil service--nobody discusses how one goes from being a grad student in philosophy to those various paths. I would feel much more comfortable about going to graduate school (especially at a lower ranked program) if I knew there were steps I could take to ensure that I could relatively smoothly transition to another career.

But, it seems to me that in most of cases where former philosophy graduate students find other jobs, the grad students had to acquire knowledge and skills that were not much if at all relevant to getting a PhD (or MA), and possibly also network with people in these alternative professional fields. But how does one do that while also being a successful graduate student? How does one find the time or energy to do so? What can a grad student in philosophy start to do early on to make their transition to another career, should they not get a desirable academic job post-graduation or drop out of graduate school, be as smooth as possible? Or, is it foolish to be thinking that far ahead in the early stages of one's career as a graduate student, and thus distracting yourself from philosophy?

This is really important query, I think, given significant grad school attrition rates and state of the academic job-market (where only 26.5% of philosophy PhDs evidently get tenure-track jobs three years post-PhD). Anyone have any tips? We recently had a 'Alt-Ac Workshop' series here at the Cocoon where people who transitioned to jobs outside of academia shared their experiences. However, I'm not sure we've ever had a thorough discussion of concrete steps grad students can take in grad school while still being a successful grad student. I'm sure it would help a lot of current and prospective grad students if those with experience could paint a clearer picture of feasible things to do to prepare for a Plan B!