The Philosophers' Cocoon

Courtesy appointments & affiliated faculty posts

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I'm curious about "courtesy appointments" and "affiliated faculty" positions. How do they come about? And what do they typically involve? Are there advantageous to them? Are there steps to take if you're interested in one?

All good questions! Any readers have any tips or insights? Do you have a courtesy appointment or affiliated position? How did you get them? What do they involve? Any tips for getting one?

The crisis in aesthetics

In the comments section of my post on this year's tenure-track jobs, Cassandra writes:

As per your posts on previous years (which show that there has been practically zero jobs in Aes/Art), it seems important to evidence and report the crisis in Aes/Art (and it is a crisis). If this isn't evidenced and reported, then there'll be less pressure on the APA, BPA and other philosophy associations, as well as the learned societies for Aes/Art (such as the American Society of Aesthetics, British Society of Aesthetics, European Society of Aesthetics, etc.) to try to tackle the fact that one of the main (and oldest) subdisciplines of philosophy will likely die out if something isn't done about this.

There is already a tendency towards aesthetics-erasure -- such as seeing job ads that say "Value Theory, broadly construed (i.e. ethics, social and political philosophy)" and senior aes/phils of art needing to openly advise junior aes/phils of art to hide the fact that they are "card-carrying" aes/phils of art on the job market. So it'd be super helpful if the Cocoon could help cast light on the problem by including Aes/Art.

This wouldn't just help job candidates with an AoS in Aes/Art, but could also help institutions in deciding where to hire. Due to the dearth of jobs in Aes/Art, there are a glut of really excellent early-career Aes/Art. So, why look for an ethicist or epistemology, and end up with a good one (or at least an unproven entity), when you could have an outstanding (and proven) aesthetician or philosopher of art?

I think it's clear that there is a crisis here, as there appear to be virtually no aesthetics jobs year after year (at least in the Anglophone world). So, I do think it is worth bringing this to greater attention and discussing what might be done. But, what I don't know is how the discipline (including the APA and other associations) might do to tackle it. Do readers have any thoughts/ideas here?

Thanking referees at other journals?

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

A paper I am working on has been rejected by a journal, despite two positive reviews. One reviewer gave me excellent, very helpful suggestions for improvements which I have now made in the revised version. If the paper ultimately gets accepted somewhere, I think this person deserves an acknowledgement and if they read the published version will see that I took up their suggestions. Will it look bad to thank an 'anonymous reviewer for Journal X' in a paper published in Journal Y? Maybe my concern is pure egoism and not wanting people to know it was previously rejected, but is there any etiquette on this?

Good questions, and I've recently wondered this too. I often thank reviewers in my papers, but I'm not sure that I've ever published a paper in one journal and explicitly thanked referees from another one. I suspect one can sort of do whatever one wants here, but I too am curious: is there a particular etiquette here?

Advice for a 'journal horror story'?

In our March, "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I have an ongoing journal horror story and I could use some advice.

I submitted a paper to a journal in March 2021, almost 14 months ago. Around 5 months in I started contacting the journal about the paper's status once a month. The managing editor's replies were very uninformative each time, but after a while they said that the journal was in the process of looking for a new publisher and that everything was slowed down as a result.

Once a year had passed I decided to contact the chief editor of the journal. The journal has a triple blind review review process, so I sent an anonymized email. A week later I got an R&R verdict on the paper, with quite positive reviews. I also got an apologetic letter from the managing editor, which revealed some details about the process. Apparently, everything in the journal has to go through the managing editor. At one point, the subject editor handling the manuscript had a query for the chief editor regarding the paper. The query had to go through the managing editor, who decided not to pass it along for now. It sat there for three months, because the managing editor thought that the chief editor should only be bothered with stuff regarding the new publisher deal. It was passed along to the chief editor only once I reached out.

I submitted a revision a month ago, and the paper is still stuck at the "undergoing initial checking" stage, which usually takes a day or two. I contacted the managing editor again, who said, as they did many times before, that they're busy with this new publishing deal and my paper will move to the next stage very soon.

I'm afraid it will be months before the paper is even passed along to a subject editor and then to reviewers, and it might get new reviewers and who knows what will happen then. I'm not sure what to do. Should I contact the chief editor again? I don't want to bother them again but I don't know what else to do.

I have to confess that I'm really not sure what to advise here. Given that the revision has only been there a month, and R&R reviews can routinely take several months, I'm not sure that I would check in with the chief editor yet. Then again, given what happened during the first round review process, maybe checking in makes sense. I guess if it were me, I might wait another month or so, but again, I'm not sure. What do you all think?

Writing tips?

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a grad student asks:

Do you have any advice for when one's ability to ask questions and talk philosophy outpaces one's ability to write? How to catch up on philosophical writing in that regard? Thank you!

Good question, and I'm curious whether any other grad students or faculty have any helpful tips. I guess the two tips that I would offer in this situation are:

1. Write every day: make yourself write something like 500 words a day, without worrying about editing. Even if it's just sketching out an argument, the more you write, the better you'll get at it.
2. Consider 'talking out' papers: literally, try to give a 'lecture' on what you want to write, recording yourself. If you're really good at talking philosophy, you might be able to take what you've recorded and translate it to paper in written form. Kripke's Naming & Necessity was a series of lectures. None of us are Kripke, of course, but if you're good at talking philosophy, this approach might be helpful.

Anyway, these are just a few simple suggestions. What do you all think? It would be great to hear from others who have grappled with this issue successfully. Which strategies did yo find to be helpful?

Where the TT jobs were(n't) in 2021-22

Updated 4/28

Longtime readers may recall that most of the past handful of years, I've done informal data-collection on PhilJobs to see what the year's academic job market has been like (here are the numbers for 2020-21, 2019-20, 2017-18, and 2016-17). Anyway, I was curious what this year's market was like, so I've gone and done another tally. I realize that PhilJobs isn't a complete sample, as a good number of jobs may only be advertised elsewhere, such as at HigherEdJobs. However, collecting and collating this kind of data is really hard work and PhilJobs is the easiest to work with (by far)--so that is the sample I use each year. One quick note before proceeding: although I've done my best to collect the data in this post accurately, this is just an informal report, not a formal study, so if there are any errors, I apologize in advance (though, if there are any, I'm fairly certain they would be very, very minor). Here is my spreadsheet, if anyone would like to triple-check things (you can also take a deeper dive than the numbers below to see how many jobs were advertised this year in particular AOS sub-categories, e.g., mind, metaphysics, philosophy of race, etc.). I'm more than happy to correct any errors and update this post if any are found.

Like last year, I've decided to break things up into two different posts: one on TT jobs (today), and another on non-TT jobs (a few weeks from now). Today's post is based upon a PhilJobs search for 'tenure-track (or similar)' job ad posted between August 1st, 2021 and Friday, April 8th, 2022. A few quick notes on methodology. The methodology I've always used in this series works as follows. When I encounter jobs with two AOS's (e.g. metaphysics, moral philosophy), I counted each job as '.5' jobs in that area (or in the case of 3 AOS, '.33' jobs, etc.). Although I recognize this is a bit odd, it seems to me to make sense, as a job like that could go to someone in any of the listed AOSs, not just one particular AOS. Because I did this with all jobs, the numbers seem to me to accurately weight whether a job is in a particular AOS simpliciter, or whether it was also available to candidates in other AOS. Second, as noted above I only counted "junior-level" jobs (i.e. postdocs, lecturer, and Assistant Professor positions), not Associate or Professor level jobs. Third, I only counted academic jobs (leaving the very few non-academic jobs advertised on PhilJobs to the side). 

Anyway, here are the numbers I compiled for this year, along with a few graphs for comparisons to past years:

Total (junior-level) TT jobs advertised in 2021-22: 201

• 2020-21: 118
• 2019-20: 224
• 2017-18: 228
• 2016-17: 231

TT jobs advertised by AOS:

Open AOS: 36.68 jobs (18.24% of jobs advertised)

2016-17	17%
2017-18	17.8%
2019-20	20.5%
2020-21	24.6%
2021-22	18.2%

'Core areas' (mind, language, metaphysics, epistemology, logic): 24.3 jobs (12.1% of TT jobs advertised)

2016-17	10%
2017-18	13.1%
2019-20	8.3%
2020-21	6.4%
2021-22	12.1%

Philosophy of Science (including cog sci, philosophy of technology, & AI): 14.34 jobs (7.1% of TT job ads)

2016-17	7.8%
2017-18	6.5%
2019-20	10.9%
2020-21	11.7%
2021-22	7.1%

Ethics: 47.18 jobs (23.5% of TT job ads)

2016-17	21.6%
2017-18	22.6%
2019-20	23%
2020-21	26.3%
2021-22	23.5%

Social and Political Philosophy: 24.79 jobs (12.3% of TT job ads)

2016-17	12%
2017-18	11.8%
2019-20	8%
2020-21	10.3%
2021-22	12.3%

History of Philosophy: 19.43 jobs (9.6% of TT job ads)

2016-17	13%
2017-18	11.2%
2019-20	12.3%
2020-21	6.1%
2021-22	9.7%

Philosophy of marginalized identities (race, gender, disability, etc.): 17.08 jobs (8.5% of TT job ads)

2016-17	6.7%
2017-18	4.7%
2019-20	5.2%
2020-21	6.8%
2021-22	8.5%

'Non-Western' Philosophies: 11.74 jobs (5.8% of TT job ads)

2016-17	5.2
2017-18	4.7
2019-20	5.2
2020-21	6.5
2021-22	5.8

Continental philosophy (& phenomenology): 2 jobs

Philosophy of Religion: 1.83 jobs

Here are some graphical comparisons over time:

As you can see, each job season Ethics has far and away advertised the highest number/percentage of TT jobs, followed by Open AOS. If (as in some of my previous report posts) one combines Ethics and Social-Political into a single category ('value theory'), the number of total Value Theory jobs is vastly higher than any other area of TT jobs advertised. Because AOS's lower down on this graph are messy and hard to parse out because of how the graph compresses things, here's the same graph subtracting out Ethics and Open AOS:

As you can see, things are pretty 'noisy' here. It is hard to make out any clear trends, though History of Philosophy TT jobs seem to have declined some over the past two years, whereas TT jobs in Philosophies of Marginalized identities appear to have increased modestly over the past five years. Notably, however, these changes generally pretty small--just a few percentage points here and there.

So, I guess my takeaways are these:

• This season's TT job was vastly better than last year's COVID-impacted season, but still not quite up to the level of TT job ads pre-COVID.
• Ethics and Open AOS continue to dominate other AOS's in terms of TT jobs advertised.
  • Update/note: a full 67.5% of TT jobs in Ethics were in applied ethics fields this year (47.18 jobs in Ethics, 31.86 of which were applied areas).
• It's hard to make out clear trends regarding other AOS's, all of which seem to fluctuate markedly over time--though History of Philosophy appears to have declined somewhat over time whereas Marginalized Identity jobs appear to have modestly increased the past few years.
• I also noticed (merely anecdotally) that philosophies of marginalized identities and non-Western philosophies appears to occur relatively often this year in AOS categories (though I was not able to do comparisons to past years, as I have not in general compiled AOC numbers):
  
  • # of TT jobs w/philosophies of marginalized identities AOC's: 22 jobs (10.9%)
  • # of TT jobs w/non-Western philosophy AOC's: 12 jobs (6%)

Update (4/28/2022): 2 Aesthetics jobs were advertised this year and accidentally omitted from the spreadsheet. I missed them both because one of them (Uppsala) was listed as "Associate Lecturer" (which I didn't identify as tenure track) and the other (Amsterdam) was listed as "tenured or permanent" (rather than tenure-track).

Submitting a vastly revised paper years after rejection?

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I wrote a paper that examined 3 issues and it was rejected by two journals (with years in between), with both sets of reviewers suggesting I focus on only one of the issues. I massively expanded the discussion of that issue so the paper focused only on that, is it acceptable to re-submit it to one of the journals that previously rejected it? It has a new title and is at least 2/3 of the paper is brand new material.

Good question! Another reader replied:

That is a new paper to my mind. I'd keep getting opinions, but here is at least one "go ahead" intuition.

My intuition is that it's almost certainly "acceptable" to submit a paper like this to a journal that rejected a (vastly) different version years earlier. However, my main question is: how do journal editors see this sort of thing? Do they look at the author's submission history, and if so, would they be unlikely to consider a paper like this? I'm really curious to hear answers from editors and/or authors who have done this, as I've been in this position too before and been uncertain about whether doing this sort of thing is a waste of time. What do you all think?

Undergraduate research assistants?

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, Derek writes:

My university provides funding for research assistants. But, our philosophy department only has an undergraduate program. The university also encourages faculty to mentor undergraduates. Having an undergraduate research assistant would be a great way to mentor students. With all of that in mind: do you have any suggestions I how I might use an undergraduate research assistant well?

This is a great question! I've never had an undergraduate research assistant, so I'm not sure what to advise. But I'm curious to hear from readers, especially those who have had undergrad assistants before. One reader submitted the following response:

Use them in a manner that will enable them to develop real and useful skills. So design a project in which they could genuinely contribute, not necessarily as an author, but as a research assistant.

What do you all think?

Presenting a conference paper: deviating from the accepted version?

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

When presenting a paper at a conference (e.g. APA), how much is it acceptable to deviate from the version of the paper that was reviewed and accepted at the conference?

This is a good and important question to answer. One time when I served as a conference commentator, the presenter basically addressed all of the issues that I had raised in the comments that I sent to them, making my commentary useless. It felt like a really underhanded thing to do, put me in a really difficult position as their commentator, and I've heard anecdotally that similar things have occasionally happened to others. I'm not sure whether and how far it is acceptable to deviate from an accepted version of a paper if you don't have a commentator, but it seems to me plainly unacceptable (and unprofessional) to do what I describe above. What do you all think? 

7 Years Later Excerpt #2: Leading Discussion Sections

By Trevor Hedberg

In the last entry, I discussed how to handle grade inquiries. This time around, I consider how to lead discussion sections -- one of the other core responsibilities of a typical teaching assistant.

---

As a teaching assistant, one of your central responsibilities will usually be leading 1-3 discussion sections each week of the semester. Typically, you’ll have 20-30 students in each section, and they will last 50 minutes, but there is some variance across institutions. So what exactly do you do to lead a discussion section? To some extent, it will depend on the instructor. In some instances, the instructor wanted me to cover some new material during these discussion sections; in other cases, I was told to just get the students talking and not worry about presenting any new course content. Sometimes, I was asked to administer quizzes or conduct assignments; sometimes, I didn’t have to do that.

The one key aspect of a discussion section is that you are supposed to get the students to discuss aspects of the course content. This might seem pretty basic, but you may not receive much direct instruction on how to get the students talking productively. (Some faculty members seem to think that graduate students will just figure it out.) Moreover, if a discussion section is not going well – that is, if the students aren’t talking – then it can get very uncomfortable very quickly. Additionally, if students feel like discussion sections are boring or pointless, their disengagement will get more pronounced as the semester progresses. That’s an outcome you obviously want to avoid, so here are some pointers on having good discussion sections:

• Always present a bit of material to the students – even if it is not required. You might think that you can just come to class with a list of prepared questions about the week’s material, ask the students those questions, and see where the conversation goes. That might work sometimes, but it’s unreliable. Some students will not have done the assigned readings for the week, and some students probably missed at least one of the week’s lectures. That means a large portion of students may not be familiar enough with the material to respond to your questions productively. Thus, you should always present a little material to the students, even if it is only a few of some of the key ideas or themes that were already covered in the week’s main lectures.
• Don’t base all your questions on the reading material. Echoing an important point above, you cannot assume that everyone in class (or even most of the students in class) will have read and understood the assigned reading for the week. If you want to dig into a key idea from the reading, make sure you review this material with the students first. But in addition to that, make sure you have a few general questions on tap that students can respond to even if they have not read one word of the assigned reading.
• Use thought experiments. Students tend to respond well to thought experiments – the trolley problem, the experience machine, Mary the colorblind neuroscientist, the prisoner’s dilemma, and so on. While there’s a legitimate debate to be had about the usefulness of thought experiments as support for premises in philosophical arguments, they remain effective pedagogical tools for getting students to reflect on philosophical problems. If you can identify a thought experiment that’s relevant to what you’re covering, consider using it 
• Use real-world examples. Many students, especially in introductory level courses that they are taking to fulfill a general education requirement, struggle to see the relevance of philosophy to everyday life. You can diminish that skepticism by basing your discussion in part on real-world cases that illustrate the key concepts for that week’s course material. This strategy may be easier to employ in ethics courses (since ethical dilemmas manifest in the real world frequently), but if you’re creative and willing to do some digging online, you may be surprised what you can find.
• Use videos. Students nowadays read less frequently than students from several decades ago but consume far more visual media. A short, relevant video to get discussion rolling can be effective, especially with the wealth of free, easy-to-browse videos available on YouTube.
• Don’t allow only a few students to dominate discussion. Some students will obviously be more prone to participate in discussion than others, but you don’t want your discussion section of 30 students to consist of you talking exclusively with only a handful of them. If you have trouble getting others to participate, consider having them work in groups or write down an answer to a prompted question at the start of class. Some students will be more comfortable participating when they have written remarks they can read or otherwise use to form their answer.
• Get to know your students. Your discussion sections will usually be small: 20-25 students. Find a way to learn your students’ names – either via the creation of a seating chart, sheer memorization, or some other method. Part of making these discussion sections go well involves crafting a relationship with your students so that they are more willing to participate. Also be willing to talk to them before class officially starts. Be polite, and be approachable.

There are certainly other techniques that could be employed, but these are my starter strategies. Do you all have any others that graduate teaching assistants should employ?

Sending out 'different' papers with similar arguments?

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a grad student writes:

Is it acceptable to simultaneously send out two papers which share the same general arguments but have vastly different presentations/styles (and even different conclusions)?

Example 1: Suppose there are multiple theories, A, B, C, D, and E, on an issue. You argue that a satisfactory theory should satisfy desiderata D1 and D2. You argue that theories A, B, and C fail to accomodate D1, theories D and E fail to accomodate D2. You argue that theory A with a restriction would accomodate both D1 and D2. Therefore, a restricted version of theory A is superior to all other views in the literature.

A reviewer proposes that you ignore B-E and just focus on A. You can instead argue that although theory A satisfies D2, theory A fails to accomodate the plausible desiderata D1, and this could be solved by adding in a restriction without compromising on D2.

Adopting the changes would result in a paper with a different conclusion (You will no longer be arguing for a view that is superior to all other views. You would be merely arguing that theory A needs a restriction). The presentation of the paper would also change substantially since it's focused on theory A rather than the broader literature. But the main general argument (that D1 is needed, and theory A with a restriction can accomodate D1 without compromising on D2) is the same. Would it be permissible to send out both the original version and the revised version to different journals given such differences?

Example 2: You have a standard paper, say 8k words long. Some reviewers recommend that you consider re-framing it as a reply paper to author X specifically, and make it a short reply-style paper (3k-4k). Doing so would change the presentation and style of the paper, omit a number of details (e.g. some objections and replies are left out), and cut out parts that connect to the broader literature so that you only focus on author X. But the shortern reply-style paper would still have the same general arguments. Would it be permissible to send out both the long version and short version to different journals given such differences?

This is an interesting query. I'm not entirely sure, but my sense is that Example 2 is probably impermissible but Example 1 more of a gray area case. The issue in both cases is that the main arguments are pretty similar, and if reviewers or editors at different journals found out about it, they might get upset about it. For this reason alone, my attitude has always been that it's not worth risking this kind of thing. The last thing you want to happen is for a referee or editor to make a formal complaint of research conduct--which, although the likelihood might be small, could be a real issue. Personally, I prefer to play it safe. What do you all think?

An Online Accessibility Pledge

Philosophers for Sustainability has a new Online Accessibility Pledge that anyone can sign which holds:

The recent spread of virtual research events and meetings has shown us that philosophy can be more sustainable, accessible and inclusive, both globally and locally. Online accessibility makes it possible to include more fully a host of philosophy stakeholders whose participation is eminently desirable. Among them are low-income, disabled, neurodivergent, international, and migrant philosophers, caregivers, philosophers with dietary restrictions, and students and scholars with limited access to travel funds. Finally, online-accessible meetings make our practices of gathering to discuss academic ideas more sustainable by reducing expensive and environmentally harmful travel.

Going forward, we philosophers pledge wherever possible to organize online-accessible research meetings. Such meetings may be organized either fully online or using a hybrid (online/in-person) model. In both cases, we will aim to make them accessible remotely by anyone who wishes to take part in them while fulfilling other requisite criteria, e.g. has had their paper accepted for a particular meeting, is a scholar in the relevant disciplines etc. We will offer such online accessibility to both presenters and participating audiences, from the start and for all academic presentations or aspects of the event. In doing so, we will take advantage of the accessibility features the online medium affords, such as closed captions, transcriptions etc. Finally, we will require no justifications or explanations of anyone who expresses their wish to take advantage of such online accessibility, nor will we charge unreasonable fees for their online participation.

I strongly support the spirit of this pledge, and I am strongly inclined to sign it with one minor caveat: namely, that in the case of hybrid online/in-person conferences, organizers should probably be able to set aside a particular number of in-person presentation slots (which, to be equitable, should plausibly--whenever possible--be equal in number to the number of remote-presenting slots on the program) and require submissions to indicate which type of slot they are applying for. This is because organizers of in-person events typically need to reserve conference venues, hotels, etc., and so may need assurances well in advance of the conference that some number of in-person presenters will attend (or else place themselves at serious financial risk, potentially violating vendor contracts, etc.). But this caveat aside, the pledge seems to me a very good one for sustainability, accessibility, and inclusivity reasons. 

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Best introductory textbooks in different areas?

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

Is there a thread or a place which recommends the best textbooks for introductory courses to the core areas: metaphysics, epistemology, etc.?---for very good students that have no background and want to learn the fundamentals. I am teaching such courses but my choice of readings has not been satisfactory. I am a faculty but have never taken undergrad courses in analytic philosophy. Thank you thank you!

This is a great query, and I'd love to hear some answers from readers, not just in "core" areas (metaphysics, mind, language, logic, epistemology), but also in other areas too! For example, I'd be curious to hear what people think the best introductory textbooks are in (but not limited to) the following:

• Moral philosophy
• Bioethics
• Philosophy of law
• Business Ethics
• Environmental
• Bioethics
• Etc.

In my own case, I've often experimented with different texts, haven't always been happy with the ones that I've used, and I am always on the lookout for better options. So, what do you all think? What do you think are the best intro-level textbooks in various areas (and why)?

Including declined awards (etc.) in job apps?

In our March “how can we help you?” thread, Filippo Contesi asks:

How does one use information about job offers, invitations and other, for lack of a better word, achievements that one declined but which would have been good additions to one’s CV or academic profile? Can/should they be mentioned in formal documents: e.g. CVs, cover letters?

Interesting questions. I’ve seen people include declined awards on CVs, but I guess it might seem strange to include (e.g.) a list of declined keynote invitations or declined invitations to contribute to edited volumes, or to include this information in a cover letter. I definitely don’t think it would be a good idea to include declined job offers. So, what exactly does and does not make sense to include? What do you all think?

Handling (sketchy) citation omissions?

In our newest “how can we help you?” thread, a reader writes:

I would be interested in hearing thoughts and reactions to an experience that I think is typical, but sensitive.

Recently, a paper was published in a highly regarded journal. I think the paper is excellent. It argues for a thesis that I think is a constructive elaboration of a thesis that I defended a few years ago in a less regarded venue.

But I wasn't cited. This can happen, I'm sure. But what gives me some pause is the fact that their bibliography contains most, if not all, the same references that I have referred to in my own work on this topic. Some of the references could be considered obscure. So, I am left wondering how the paper has an excellent bibliography, but perhaps the author did not come across my work or find it relevant. The former possibility is fine. The latter possibility would make less sense to me because it involves the very same argumentative strategy that the author uses in their own paper (but mind you that I think the author does it better).

I'm trying to be mindful here about this experience. On the one hand, complaining about failing to be cited feels like complaining about not being retweeted or shared on social media. On the other, the experience seems to be giving me feelings of exclusion from the philosophy profession (especially as a nonwhite early career academic).

I am also not up to speed with citation ethics. We all know that plagiarism is bad. But sometimes people fail to cite crucial elements of their view that have an intellectual heritage in the works of others. I feel like the risks of trying to enforce a norm against such failures outweigh the benefits. But I also dislike the feeling of being made to feel subjectively irrelevant to a debate where my contribution was objectively relevant at the textual and argumentative level.

Thoughts? Opinions?

This is an excellent query. I really empathize: similar stuff has happened to me a number of times, and I know from talking to people that it happens to other people as well. When this has occurred to me, I’ve given some thought to trying to do something—but, to be honest, as the OP notes it never seemed to me to be worth the trouble. Instead, my approach has been to take the high road and keep publishing work in the hope that it won’t really matter in the end.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? It would be good to hear how many people this kind of stuff happens to, and how people deal with it or think the best way of dealing with it is!

Funding to Start Mentoring Programs for Underrepresented Undergraduates

By Wes Siscoe (Postdoc, University of Cologne)

Philosophy has a “leaky pipeline” problem. Even though the racial and gender diversity of philosophy undergraduates has been increasing, underrepresented students are still far less likely to complete graduate study in philosophy. From 2000 to 2016, the percentage of philosophy majors who identified as Black rose steadily from 3% to 13%, but the percentage of philosophy PhD recipients who identified as Black only rose from 1.5% to 4%. During that same time, the percentage of philosophy majors who identified as women rose from 35% to 45%, but the percentage of philosophy PhD recipients who identified as women remained below 35%. Thus, although the number of minority students within undergraduate philosophy programs is increasing, this growth has not shown up to the same degree at the graduate level. There is a leak in the pipeline that runs from undergraduate philosophy to philosophy PhD programs.

In order to combat this leaky pipeline, Lauren Willson and I are now accepting proposals to create seed chapters of the Minorities and Philosophy Mentoring Program.  Through funding provided by the APA, selected applicants will receive a $1,000 stipend, prepared mentoring materials, and year-long consulting sessions to support their work in launching and developing their programs.  Applying Program Directors must be graduate students in philosophy during the 2022-2023 academic year in order to be eligible (M.A. and PhD students are both welcome to apply).  The PhilJobs posting about this opportunity can be found here.

The original chapter of the MAP Mentoring Program was founded at Florida State University during the 2020-2021 academic year.  Original program staffing included one Program Director and 14 graduate student mentors.  The Program Director was responsible for overseeing all elements of the program, including expanding institutional support for the program, scheduling meetings to inform all team members of upcoming responsibilities, and troubleshooting any problems that arose during the creation of the program. Mentors were responsible both for forming a relationship with students in which mentees felt comfortable sharing some of the challenges and obstacles they face within philosophy and helping them reflect on and pursue various academic and career opportunities.

Contesi on linguistic inclusion in philosophy

Filippo Contesi (postdoc, University of Barcelona) draws my attention to his recent iai news article which contends that:

Given the tendency of native Anglophone analytic philosophers to remain monolingual, the discipline is losing out on philosophical perspectives that are afforded by competence in languages other than English...majority Anglophone countries house only about 6% of the global population. Philosophical discussion is consequently deprived of a huge pool of philosophical talent. Given the tendency of native Anglophone analytic philosophers to remain monolingual, the discipline is additionally losing out on those philosophical perspectives that are afforded by competence in languages other than English.

I'm all for this in principle, as I often come across interesting philosophy articles in other languages and would love for it to easier to find and read such articles (one can always put a document into Google Translate, for example, but in order to find an article in the first place one may need to be able to read the title!). So, I'm curious: how might Contesi's proposal best work? Contesi suggests a number of options, including the 'Barcelona Principles for a Globally Inclusive Philosophy', which hold (among other things) that journals should evaluate submissions on the basis of ideas rather than fluency and seek to include (whenever possible) non-English speakers on editorial boards, etc. I wonder how far this could go, however. Obviously, there are so many languages fluency in more than a few of them can be difficult, and of course it would seem formidably difficult to ensure that journal editorial boards represent most languages on Earth (and find reviewers, etc.).

So, I wonder whether Anglophone journals might instead consider submissions that are translated into English via Google Translate, and then explicitly notify reviewers that this is the case (noting the original language of authorship), instructing reviewers to not hold translation issues or other English-writing infelicities against the submitter. Then, when publishing the eventual article, perhaps the journal could publish it simultaneously in its original language alongside an English translation. Anyway, I'm curious: what do you all think? 

Penn State Summer CUSP Institute

SUMMER CUSP INSTITUTE (This Institute will take place in person at the Penn State University Park campus.)

PENN STATE UNIVERSITY - DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

JUNE 6-10, 2022

APPLICATIONS ARE DUE APRIL 14TH

Summer CUSP Institute is held in the summer for undergraduates who are normally in their second or third year of study and are considering pursuing a career in Philosophy. For a week, students will attend seminars designed to cultivate the skill sets necessary to excel in the field in Philosophy.

If you are interested in applying, please review the application components and fill out our online application when your materials are ready.

The goals of the CUSP Summer Institute are to:

• Increase the knowledge of, and interest in, doctoral-level training in philosophy.
• Provide one-on-one meetings with faculty focused on strengthening philosophical writing and presentations; seminars and workshops to refine students' critical reading and writing skills.
• Enhance students' knowledge of the graduate application process, negotiating the academic rigors and professional and personal challenges encountered in graduate school, and developing an academic career in philosophy.  
• Provide long-term mentoring and networking opportunities with faculty members and graduate students at Penn State.

You are eligible to participate in the Summer Institute if:

• You are a member of a traditionally underrepresented group (including African Americans, Chicano/as and Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asian Americans).
• You are available from June 6th, 2022 to June 10th, 2022.

During the selection process, preference will be given to current undergraduate sophomores or juniors; however, others are still encouraged to apply.

Please visit our website to learn more about application criteria, previous cohorts, and our Fall CUSP program: https://sites.psu.edu/cusp/

The gamification of philosophy: how the profession became hoop-jumpers for top journals

Philosophy is gamified. We jump through hoops to try to get published in the "right" journals, and we do it willingly. We almost all do it, even those very lucky few of us who have earned tenure.

Perhaps we do it because this is genuinely the work we wish to write. Perhaps we just want to show we're still in the game. As Maeve McKeown writes in a paper on gamification and political theory  which just as well could apply to philosophy: 

Contemporary political theory is a game. Individuals compete to publish in ‘top’ journals, to amass greater numbers of publications than their peers; then journal-ranking is combined with number of publications generating scores. The aim is to get the most points. Whoever gets the most points wins: they get the best jobs and the most prestige. This Hunger Games–like contest has serious consequences for people’s lives, determining who can make a living from academia, who will be relegated to the academic precariat or forced out of the profession [...] these conditions are stifling intellectual creativity, diversity, and dissent in political theory/philosophy. 

Now, gamification isn't necessarily bad. We gamify things that we might otherwise not see through, such as language-learning. Yet, gamification narrows a broad range of experiences into a predictable path.

Informing other search committees of offers?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

Let's say you have an offer on the table.

But you also just had a first round interview for another place.

If you're waiting to hear back after the first round from the second place, is it appropriate to reach out with this information to see if you can get a response sooner or would just imprudent or unwise?

This is a good question. My sense is that if you're still in the running for other positions you want, it's always a good idea to let them know that you have an offer. If the search committee really wants you, this could motivate them to move quickly with you. However, my sense is also that, a lot of times, this just isn't possible. For example, if (as in the OP's) case you only just finished a first-round interview, it seems unlikely that the department could move quickly enough before the offer you currently have expires. Most job offers these days have fairly quick deadlines (1 to 2 weeks), and the second department may be required to do fly-outs (with multiple candidates) before they can even extend an offer. But, I think, it's always worth a try to see what can happen.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts. What are yours? It would be good, obviously, to hear from candidates who have done this, as well as from search committees (to hear what is and what is not possible on their end)!

Formulating good grant proposals?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, D writes:

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the best way to formulate research proposals, especially for grant applications. In particular, I am undecided between these two options:

(a) in terms of the arguments that you intend to make. For example: "I will write a paper arguing that X."
(b) in terms of open research questions that you wish to explore. For example: "I will write a paper exploring X."

I would be glad to hear what people who have won grant applications or been on committees prefer or if they have any other suggestions.

This is a great query. I've only applied for a few grants myself, so I'd be very interested to hear some tips as well. Have any readers won grants, or alternatively, judged grant applications? If so, do you have any helpful advice? 

Writing a good book review?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

On the topic of book reviews, I'm interested in any general advice regarding the process of writing them. Really interested in advice on any aspect -- e.g. do you read the book any differently, and if so, how? how do you choose which points to develop? what do the best book reviews do well, and what are some pitfalls or ways they could go poorly? These are just some starting points. Really any advice is helpful. This is my first time writing a book review. It's for a journal if that's relevant. Also curious how long people spend on writing them so I can get a sense of how much time to budget, though I know it'll vary a lot!

These are all excellent questions. What do you all think? For my part, I tend to think the best reviews discuss books chapter by chapter, giving the reader a fairly clear idea of what the major arguments are, and how successful the reviewer thinks they are. I tend not to like reviews that pick and choose which parts of the book to focus on (e.g. just to criticize those parts but ignoring other parts). I also think good reviews come across as 'fair minded', whatever exactly that means--though it certainly involves using the principle of charity. Here, I think Philosophy in Review's five kinds of reviewer guidelines are fairly apt:

Five Kinds of Reviewer

(adapted by Roger Shiner from Susan Swan, 'Nine ways of looking at a critic', Toronto Globe and Mail 30th November 1996. E23)

1.      The Spankers are out to administer discipline over anything from ill-conceived plot-lines to misplaced commas.

2.      The Young (and Old) Turk sees the review solely as an opportunity to demonstrate her or his own intellectual superiority and above-average intelligence.

3.      The Self-Abusers feel they could have written a better book on the subject, given half the chance, and describe it at great length.

4.      Gushers skip over discussion of the book; they just want to communicate the enjoyment of reading it.

5.      The Good Reviewer will represent the book (without lapsing into long-winded summaries) so the reader gets a sense of what the book is like whether the reviewer likes it or not. The good reviewer will also offer an interesting or revealing point of view from which the book can be perceived critically.

As for how long to spend on a review, I'm not sure: maybe a few weeks of sporadic work? You want to do a good job, obviously, but you shouldn't let writing a book review crowd out time for other things! But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Writing a book: what do you wish you'd known?

On Twitter, Alexandra Gustafson (PhD candidate, Toronto) asks:

What do you wish you knew before you wrote your first book?

This is a great question, and I definitely have thoughts that I'll share down in the comments section. But I'm really curious to hear from other book authors!

What do job titles mean abroad?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

There was recently some very enlightening back-and-forth in another thread ("Tenure track faculty getting TT jobs?") about the meanings of academic job titles in Scandinavia. For example, it was revealed that it is not unusual for an 'associate professorship' to be taken up by a postdoc. I think I and many readers would benefit a lot from a general explanation of these titles, whether their meanings vary across Scandinavia, and what kinds of applicants will and won't be competitive for them!

This is a great query, and I think it would be great to not only hear about Scandinavia but other countries as well. What do job titles in your country mean? Who is eligible for them, and what does it take to be competitive for them? Does anyone have any helpful insights?

From a top-5 PhD program to teaching job?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

How can those at top universities be competitive for teaching-focused jobs, especially at non-prestigious schools?

I'm at a top 5 PGR-ranked university and almost everyone ends up at a research-focused job (typically at R1s or prestigious SLACs). I'm told that I will seem like a flight risk for teaching-focused jobs and at non-prestigious schools. But I don't care about prestige and I think I enjoy teaching more than research. So, I like to be competitive for teaching-focused jobs, even at non-prestigious schools. Any advice would help.

This is an excellent question, and I'm really curious to hear what everyone thinks. Here are three things that I think are likely to help based on my experience:

1. A significant amount of solo teaching experience (either in grad school, a community college, VAP, etc.).
2. A publishing record, but not a bunch of publications in top-ranked journals.
3. A teaching portfolio that shows that you have thought a lot about pedagogy and do more than 'chalk and talk' teaching/traditional Socratic discussion.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? It would be great to hear from people who work at and/or have hired at the kinds of institutions the OP asks about!