The Philosophers' Cocoon

Summer sounds

Is it ethical to post preprints?

Liam Kofi Bright, Remco Heesen, and I have argued for transitioning toward a crowdsourced approach to peer review. Yet, one common concern raised to our alternative approach is that it would effectively undermine anonymized review--the main mechanism in our current system for mitigating bias in favor and against authors on the basis of knowing their identity. I honestly appreciate this concern, though I still think the overall benefits of moving toward a hybrid peer-review model like that used in math and physics (which combines a crowdsourced approach with traditional journal review) are likely to outweigh the costs. 

But regardless, I recognize that not everyone agrees that peer-review should change, and this has gotten me thinking a bit about the ethics of particular actions surrounding these issues. For example, one thing that advocates for change might do is to post preprints on PhilArchive or PhilSci Archive, normalizing the practice. But, is it ethical to do this?  Last week, I asked whether journals or referees care whether authors post preprints--and I'm glad I did. For, as Jake Nebel chimed in, at least one philosophy journal, Ethics, does care about this. Their official editorial policy for Submission Eligibility reads:

We ask that authors not post or publish online manuscripts that they have submitted or will be submitting to Ethics, as doing so may compromise the anonymous review process or may disqualify the submission on grounds of prior publication.

So, I'm curious about a couple of things. First, irrespective of whether other journals have a policy like this, is it ethical for authors to post preprints--either on an online archive or on their person website--prior to journal submission (given the manner in which it might compromise anonymized peer review)? If it's not ethical, what alternative steps for promoting reform to peer review (for those of us who advocate for reform) are ethical? I'm really curious to hear what everyone thinks!

Paper feedback groups?

Following Helen's recent post on finding "first readers" for paper drafts, a reader writes in:

[S]ome authors ... lack a community of readers who can provide feedback. Why not something similar to the dissertation groups but for papers and junior academics? This is not helpful for everyone, but I guess those from small departments, etc., may find it helpful.

This is a great query. When I was in graduate school at Arizona and my first VAP job (at UBC), finding readers for paper drafts was really easy. Both departments had large numbers of faculty and grad students, and finding a reader was often as easy as just walking down the hall, stopping by someone's office, and asking! However, once I moved into a much smaller department, finding people with relevant expertise to read paper drafts became far more difficult. I think it would be fantastic if there were some kind of good online resource for finding readers, perhaps some kind of dedicated message-board at PhilPeople (perhaps sorted by AOS) where philosophers could post "reader wanted" queries, perhaps along with some broad information on the paper's topic and other details (such as willingness to trade papers, etc.). But, to the best of my knowledge, there isn't anything like this.

Alt-Ac Job-Market Tips (quick links)

Here is a list of links to our Alt-Ac Transition Tips series:

1. Supporting non-academic careers (Kevin J.S. Zollman)

2. Moving from academia to a think tank (Jason Schukraft)

3. What I learned from leaving academic philosophy (Samuel Kampa)

4. My Path into Project Management (Katharine Schweitzer)

5. Tips for transitioning into tech industries?

6. Leaving academia for industry: 7 years later (Zachary Ernst)

7. Networking and 'Leaving Academia'

8.  Interview: ‘How to Shawshank your way out of academia’ (Aaron Kagan)

9.  How to leave philosophy (Greg Stoutenburg)

10. How to make yourself hireable outside of academia as a philosophy grad student or PhD (Aaron Kagan)

11. Alt-ac careers podcast: 'Off Campus'

12. Crowdsourcing job ads thread

And here is a list of links to our Alt-Ac Workshop series:

1. Marketable Skills, Potential Jobs, & Networking (Calvin Warner)

2. How to create an Alt-Ac Philosophical Company and do work that you love (Claartje van Sijl)

3. Phil Skills - an Alt-Ac Resource website (Eleni Manis)

4. Pursuing a Career in Government (Carl Baker)

5. Navigating grad program politics when leaving?

Learning students' names

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

For those of you who teach: how do you learn your students' names? Or do you even bother to learn them at all? Do you have them make name tags, or introduce themselves?

Good questions. I think it's good practice to learn students' names, but obviously, one's ability to do this can vary a lot depending on class sizes. In my department, class sizes are capped at 25 students for lower-level courses and 20 for higher-level ones--so, I don't normally have trouble learning names. But, if I were teaching large lecture classes with hundreds of students, I don't think I'd be able to do so.

In terms of strategies for learning names, I've found two methods to be helpful. The first is to have graded work that you hand back consistently, so that as you hand back work, you can repeatedly associate the name on the work with the student's face. However, now that I grade virtually all work electronically, I don't really use this strategy anymore. Instead, ever since COVID (when it was mandatory for contact tracing), I've kept seating charts to mark down student participation. This has been super helpful, as it helps me to know who is speaking during class discussion, so if I can't immediately remember someone's name, I can check on the fly.

But these are just strategies that I've found to be helpful. What strategies do you use?

Secret Lives of Search Committees (quick links)

This is a list of links to our Secret Lives of Search Committees series:

1. Top 5 job-market tips

2. Tips from a Research University search committee member

3. Tips from a Liberal Arts College Committee Member

4. How 'fit' matters

5. How applications are read

6. How decisions are made

7. Originality

8. AOS and project choices

9. Staleness

10. Job candidate career stage

11. Teaching experience

12. 'Horse-trading'

13. Online presence

14. Interviews

15. Not acting like a grad student

16. What happens after interviews

17. Teaching dossiers

18. CVs

19. Recommendation letters

20. Job-talks at teaching schools

21. Jobs abroad

22. Campus visits

23. Apply again!

Tips for reviewing book proposals?

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

I have recently received my first invitation to review a book proposal, and was wondering what are the main things to consider as a referee. Should I go about in a similar way I would review a journal article, or should I be stricter with regard to originality, potential impact, or other aspects?

This is an excellent question, and I'm really curious to hear what readers think. My (admittedly anecdotal) sense is that the reviewing standards for book proposals are quite different than for journal articles. Because it's normally taken for granted that an author of a book manuscript will have ample time to revise the manuscript prior after receiving a contract (prior to a final "clearance review" of the final manuscript prior to publication), the job of a book proposal reviewer isn't to decide whether the book is publishable as-is. It is to give the editors a recommendation as to whether the book seems promising enough to either (A) place a full draft of the manuscript under review, or (B) offer a contract...

Notes from both sides of the market (quick links)

This is a list of quick-links to our Notes From Both Sides of the Market series:

1. Building a strong CV

2. Organizing one's CV

3. Teaching portfolio dilemmas

4. Making the teaching statement precise

5. Standing out in a crowded field

6. Interpreting interview results

7. Standing out for teaching jobs

8. More on standing out for teaching jobs

9. The elusiveness of "fit"

10. Tenure requirements

11. Tenure requirements & decisionmaking

Finding first readers for your paper

Your manuscript (book chapter, paper etc) needs a first reader (also known as "alpha reader" in literature critique) to spot obvious problems before it goes out for review.

We know that many great papers need multiple tries at journals before they land. I read a lot of referee reports in my capacity as editor, and I have noticed the luck of the draw of refereeing boils down to the following: referees who buy into your project (not necessarily agree though often that is what happens), will be much more likely to give a positive verdict. 

The referee must at the very least think the problem is interesting, your approach is interesting and advances the debate, and will be of use to the broader community. Unfortunately, a lot of that judgment is not down to objective properties of your paper, but to the specific scholarly background of the referee and their tastes, what they deem would be important or of use.

With everyone overworked and referees rejecting requests, the chance is high you'll bump on a referee who doesn't buy into your project, leading to rejection. The most heartbreaking thing I see as an editor is that a referee who does buy into the project finds too many problems in a paper. They'll say something like this in their confidential comments to the editor, "I like the overall aim, I think there's really a good idea there, but unfortunately, I am recommending rejection because the paper suffers from multiple issues...". Editors ought not to outsource decisions to referees, so I read that report + the paper again and then I do usually agree with the referee and reject.  Sometimes in the case of conflicting reports and a paper that seems very promising, yet another referee is sought for a third opinion but it is already so difficult to find the original ones, that the most reasonable option (also given submission volume) is to recommend rejection.

Writing papers that overlap significantly

In our July "how can we help you?" thread, T asks:

I have two papers that deal with the same issue but from slightly different perspectives. Paper 1 has been accepted for publication. Paper 2 is a work in progress. Paper 2 utilizes and relies upon a criticism of a view that I develop more fully in paper 1. However, how do I incorporate this criticism in paper 2 without plagiarizing myself? I figure I should first cite myself, of course. But then can I basically copy and paste? Or should I rephrase the criticism, or expand it? How to go about this? Thanks!

These are good questions. I've faced this issue many times, and I normally try to rewrite things significantly for a few different reasons.

Job Market Boot Camp (quick links)

Given that job ads for the main academic job season tend to begin posting to PhilJobs in August (and a few jobs have already started to go up), I thought I'd spend this week posting some quick links to some of the Cocoon's various series on job-market tips.

Here's a list of links to the Cocoon's Job Market Boot Camp:

1. Building a Strong, Competitive CV

2. Tailoring your job-market strategy to your situation

3. Writing a good CV

4. Common mistakes with CVs

5. Letters of Recommendation

6. The European job market

7. Job-market consultants

8. Developing coherent research program(s)

9. The Cover Letter

10. The Teaching Statement

11. Common mistakes with teaching statements

12. The Research Statement

13. Common mistakes with research statements

14. How to cultivate a professional online presence

15. When and where to apply for tenure-track jobs

16. Where and When to Apply (Addendum)

17. The Teaching Portfolio

18. Common mistakes with teaching portfolios

19. Writing Samples

20. The Diversity Statement

21. First-round Interviews

22. Zoom & Telephone Interviews

23. The British interview

24. The Campus Visit

25. Teaching demos

26. Negotiating

27. Emotional Maintenance

28. Finding support from a mentor

29. When Spring Term Rolls Around

30. Opting for a non-academic career - when, what and how?

31. Teaching demos

Saturday sounds

Good audiovisual material for teaching?

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

I would like to assign some audiovisual material to students in addition to 'normal' readings, but I am having trouble finding appropriate material. Is there a database of some sort where I can find videos, podcasts etc? Or what are other people's strategies?

Hmm...good questions! I sometimes use YouTube videos while teaching, which I've found to be a good resource, particularly because many videos appear to meet accessibility requirements (viz. transcription, etc.). Beyond this, though, I wouldn't call myself much an expert on finding good AV material. So, I'd love to hear from readers.

Is there any kind of useful database for finding this kind of content for teaching? And, more generally, how do you use AV material in your teaching, and how do you go about finding good content?

Do journals/referees care about preprints?

There's been quite a bit of talk in the discipline in recent years about how overwhelmed journals are with submissions these days, and what to do about it. Liam Kofi Bright, Remco Heesen, and I argue in our paper, "Jury Theorems for Peer-Review", for transitioning to a crowdsourced approach where (much as in math and physics) authors would standardly upload preprints to an online repository (e.g. PhilArchive) and have papers openly reviewed there. Although Bright and Heesen argue elsewhere for abolishing peer-review at journals altogether, I demur. In math and physics, authors standardly upload preprints to the ArXiv prior to sending papers to journals. ArXiv papers are often discussed publicly on blogs and the like, and often a fairly clear consensus emerges on the merits of the paper. Papers can also be revised in light of feedback, and new versions uploaded. But none of this takes place instead of journal review. Authors still send their papers to journals, and there's still a formal peer-review process in addition to the more informal public peer-review for preprints. 

I like this hybrid model for several reasons. First, it seems to have worked quite well in math and physics. Second, it seems like a kind of "best of both worlds" approach. In my experience, some people are (understandably) skeptical about moving to an open, crowdsourced-only approach. Keeping formal peer-review at journals may assuage those who are skeptical of that alternative, ensuring that journals still serve a purpose: namely, ensuring that there is a stage of peer-review where hand-selected experts and editors with demonstrable expertise put a formal "stamp of approval" on a paper. On the flip side, a crowdsourced approach may serve as a helpful kind of "calibration check" on how journals are doing in this regard, and vice versa. If open, online reviews of particular papers diverged substantially from journal decisions, then it could be illuminating to examine why. For example, as I've noted before, a pretty wide variety of influential and Nobel Prize-winning economics papers were rejected from very good journals--and as Bright, Heesen, and I note in our paper, there's a pretty substantial literature that indicates a conservative bias in peer-review, which we contend may be partially explainable in terms of journal incentives (e.g. greater incentives to reject than accept), etc. So, having both types of peer-review work side-by-side could be very illuminating.

Cover letters for European postdocs?

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

I was wondering if anyone could shine some light on cover letters for European postdocs, as it's hard to find consistent information about what they're looking for. My main confusion is over whether and to what extent I should pitch my own project to work on. Since most European, project-based postdocs have you joining a project already in the works, do you need to pitch a project or new research of your own to work on while you're there, or should you just include why you are a good fit for the institution's project?

Excellent question, though unfortunately I have no experience with this. Do any readers have any helpful insight?

Platform for finding co-authors? (perma-thread)

A reader writes in:

I have had a raw idea for a few years that I don't know how to evaluate and am sure that I cannot put it into practice by myself, even if it has any positive points. Recently I saw a relevant post on your blog exactly about this. I thought I can ask you as you are in a good position to advise.

It starts with an (I guess common) personal experience. I argued a subfield of political philosophy, where I had no experience with the literature. For a while, I was thinking about how I could find a co-author - it would be much faster to develop such an idea with a co-author, plus it would be good to have real cooperation between subfields, fields, etc. But then it came to my mind that it may be a problem for many others too. So, why not have a platform just for that purpose?

Do editors pay attention to past rejections?

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

Maybe this calls for speculation, but I wonder if other readers have their own sense of whether journal reviews are truly blind. In particular, I am curious if others have the sense that, after they have been rejected at a journal a particular number of times, over a particular span of years, their new submissions receive less consideration than others.

I certainly hope this isn't the case! And, being a quasi-Bayesian, I'd understand if it were. I just find myself thinking, with respect to certain journals, that my rejection pile is so substantive that (maybe?) they are inclined to reject an article of mine based on past evidence.

This is an interesting query, and I'm curious to hear from authors and editors! Here are couple of quick thoughts...

Heatwave harmonies

Seems a propos for the unprecedented heat wave in the UK and Europe right now...  :/ 

Stay safe, everyone!

Handling archival restrictions in historical research?

In our July "how can we help you?" thread, Tom asks:

I am investigating a philosopher's intellectual history. A particular university archive (whom I am working with) restricts access to this deceased philosopher's records for 80 years after their attendance, but this person's records are only 70 years old now. This information would be very useful for me, but I would have to wait another 10 years, therefore postponing my progress significantly. These situations vary by institution, but does anyone have any advice on dealing with archives who keep their 70 year old records very highly protected? Would it be unreasonable to try to petition them to grant an exception? All people involved have been dead over 30 years now, so there don't seem to be any ethical issues. However, I also don't want to be a bother or to cause trouble. Thanks, Marcus!

This is an interesting query, but sadly I know nothing about this kind of stuff. It would be great to hear from historians who work with archival records on how you handle these kinds of situations. What options are available to Tom?

Dealing with harsh journal rejections?

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

How do you deal with very critical rejections at journals, the sort that claims that there is almost nothing good in your paper?

I have submitted a draft to 3 places so far, the first two are top ones, and I got mixed reviews recommending acceptance and rejection (which also contains encouraging comments). Then I submitted to a third one, not so top, as the possibly last try. To my surprise, the two referee reports are very negative and criticize everything I said that they selected as "superficial" "mistaken" "not minimally novel" etc. While I try to take in everything the referees say, it is painful to do that. Do you have such experience and how do you deal with it? Also, do you know why less top journals can give much more harsh reports? That seems counterintuitive. (In the early rejections, even for the negative part the referees only say something like the arguments are not as decisive as the author seem to think, not utterly dismissive.) Thanks a lot.

This is a great query, and I'm very curious to hear from readers. Here are my thoughts and experiences...

Sunday sounds

Saturday sounds

Why do stages of peer review take so long?

In our July "how can we help you?" thread, S asks:

I submitted an article to a journal 1.5 months ago, and it has not been sent out to reviewers yet. Is this standard?

I'm an early-career person, so I really need publications at the moment and am becoming nervous.

Another reader, 'R&R', reported being in a similar position:

I came to post about the same thing as S. I submitted a *revision* to a journal two months ago, and it hasn't been sent back out for review. It's just gone from "Editor Assigned" to "Editor Invited" and then back again. Is there any reason at all that it should take that long to send a revision back to its original reviewers? And at what point is it appropriate to say something to the editors about it?

Unfortunately, my sense is that this kind of stuff is pretty standard, and I've experienced it myself. I'll also second S's point that this is a real issue for early-career people who need publications to get a job and/or tenure and promotion. I was often totally stressed earlier in my career about how long peer-review took, and it influenced my publication strategy (such as which journals to send things to) a great deal.

Norms for writing, research, and citations

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

It is a probably basic question about academic norms. When you write a paper, concerning any train of thought (claims, arguments, etc.), should you simply think about it on your own and write it out as your own plus a reference to similar work if you do find such work, *or* search the literature and try to find if someone else makes similar claims, arguments, etc., and then simply explain this person's idea in your paper, not claiming it to be your own even if you come up with it yourself? I intend this to be a very general question---the choice in question can occur any number of times when writing a paper. Thanks in advance.

This is a great query, and it echoes a set of questions raised by NK in this thread a few months ago:

I wonder if it might be worth starting a more general discussion here about the *point* of citation. I, for one, would be interested to hear others' views on when, and why, one *ought* to cite a given work.

One suggestion made above is that you ought to (try to) cite everything relevant. Another (to which I take Helen to have objected, though the following is an attempt to describe it a bit more charitably) would be that you ought to cite relevant work that you think is good/worth reading and engaging with. These obvious differ in at least one important way: on the latter proposal, citations would be prestige-markers; on the former, they wouldn't.

Are there other options? And what is there to be said for and against each option?

I'm also curious what others think of the following sociological hypothesis: when you cite "low-prestige" work (whatever exactly that means), you thereby lower the perceived prestige of your own (i.e., the citing) work, in the sense that others are going to be less likely to read your work and/or take it seriously (if/when they take note of the character of your citations).

N.K.'s last point (that citing "low-prestige work" can lower the perceived prestige of your own) is one of the main reasons that I think authors are under an obligation to do some basic research--via doing some simple searches for key words in PhilPapers and Google Scholar--before writing, and to cite and/or discuss explicitly up front any relevant precursors (including similar arguments) to the one they intend to write about.

Norms for supervising students & co-authorship

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

I am wondering about the norms of supervising students, with regard to the content. For one, it's clear that one needs to suggest readings and clues, read the drafts, provide comments, suggestions and criticism. But how much more? For example, should you suggest substantial positive claims to be included in the thesis? What are the norms of co-authorship in such cases? What else should you take into account for responsible and fruitful supervising?

These are really excellent questions, ones that I've grappled with myself. When working with students, I take it that you don't want to "give them the answers" (or what you think the answers are to what they're working on), as it's important for them to grapple with and work out the issues themselves. At the same time, as professors we do give students a lot of feedback, both through discussion and paper comments. The question then is how to get this balance (between helping them work through problems and letting them work through the problems) correct. I'm not entirely sure how to best approximate this balance. In my case, I just try to "feel it through", guiding my students some but trying to give them space to work things out themselves. But I recognize that this probably isn't very helpful. So I'd love to hear tips from readers, including about norms of co-authorship with students!

Call for co-author(s) in physical cosmology

Philosophers, physics, and mathematics friends: I recently received a promising 'revise-and-resubmit' from a good philosophy of physics journal for a paper on General Relativity and cosmology. However, the referees are asking for mathematics beyond my capabilities. So I'm hoping to find some co-author(s) with sufficient expertise to work with to (hopefully) bring the revisions to fruition. I was able to get one co-author with a good physics background to hop on the project yesterday, but we'd love to add additional people with expertise to the project--specifically, people who specialize in mathematical physics and cosmology.

If you have this kind of expertise and might be interested, just shoot me an email at [email protected] I also have another project in a different area of philosophy of physics (that I am working on with another co-author in mathematics) that we might be able to use physics help with, as well. (N.B. Physics journals don't utilize anonymized review and the deadline for resubmission is less than 8 weeks away, which is why I'm asking for help publicly!)

Writing sample: published or unpublished?

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

Suppose you're choosing between two papers to use as a writing sample. One is the best paper you've written to date. It was published a few years ago. The other is a new manuscript. You have evidence that it's a good paper. Which should you choose? Does it matter?

Excellent questions! Offhand, I would think that one should simply use one's best paper, as the presumptive point of a writing sample is to display you doing philosophy at your best. Then again, I can't help but wonder whether some search committee members might prefer unpublished work for a couple of reasons. First, if the work is really excellent, then it may convey that your best work is ahead of you, rather than in the past. Second, it might excite the committee about where your research is heading and demonstrate that you have excellent work that is likely to be published once you are hired.

Long story short, I'm not sure. What do you all think? It would be great to hear from search committee members what they prefer and well, as well as from job candidates who used already published work (how well did that approach work?).

Philosophy of religion journal rankings?

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

Can anyone provide or point me to journal rankings for philosophy of religion?

I'm not sure if there are any journal rankings here, but if there are, feel free to link to them. Otherwise, it might be helpful to T to hear from readers who work in philosophy of religion how you rank the journals!

How to decide what (and when) to read?

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

I'm a grad student working on my dissertation. There is just so much published in my research area and related areas. I always feel overwhelmed and not know exactly which to read first, and feel guilty that I'm not reading faster than I am, and not reading more topics that are written by under-represented scholars. And when I'm reading, I feel guilty about not writing more. How did you, or would you now, decide on what to read? How much did you read per week? How did you balance reading with writing?

These are really excellent questions, though perhaps not for the reasons one might expect. My own sense is that one of the biggest mistakes that grad students and other early-career people do is to spend way too much time reading. It was certainly a mistake that I made...

Priorities and strategies after early tenure?

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

I got a tenured, fairly senior position, as one of the youngest in my country (where I never worked before), just a few years after my PhD.
Since I was not in a tenure-track position before, and since it is a department where I do not know anyone (also in a different field), I am a bit confused and at loss.

I could use suggestions about research/publication strategies, grant applications, service, how much time to spend on teaching (I am going from one graduate course every two years in the past to two bachelor courses per year now), etc.

On one hand, I feel I can relax and work on what I find interesting even if there is no immediate output; on the other hand, I feel a certain amount of pressure to prove myself, as I am fairly young, by getting large grants, organizing big conferences, outreaching, etc.

For those who have been in a similar position: what do you wish you had known?

I realize I am in a very privileged position, yet, I think it still qualifies as an early career issue.

This is a pretty unique situation, as I've rarely heard of someone getting a "tenured, fairly senior position" without being in a tenure-track position first (though perhaps the OP previously had a permanent position in a state that doesn't have tenure-track positions, such as the UK). I'm not entirely sure how to answer, as I've never been in the OP's position. It's also not entirely obvious what kind of institution they are at, though it seems likely to me that they are at an R1--in which case, I'd assume that they should dedicate most of their time to publishing and grant applications. But again, I'm not sure. Anyone have any helpful experience to share here?

Summer sounds

What inspires you philosophically?

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

I'd be interested in hearing what people read to get inspired, both in the sense of finding ideas to write about, and in the sense of just generally feeling excited about doing philosophy (ideally, these would be things that inspire you in both senses). There've been some nice posts here and elsewhere stressing the value of working on things that truly capture your imagination, not worrying too much about chasing hot topics etc. But when those debates are much of what's in the journals, where do you go to find inspiration instead?

This is a wonderful question, and I'm very curious to hear from readers!

I find my inspiration to philosophy in many places, and get most of my ideas not from reading but rather from simply living and exploring things about the world that interest me. As an ethicist, my work is mostly inspired by everyday life experience--concerning the questions that I find myself confronted with as a human being, such as (to take just one example) why people should behave ethically when it looks like they might benefit from doing wrong. But also, insofar as my work in ethics intersects with my work in political philosophy, I'm often inspired by current events and world history. One of the things that is inspiring my work the most at the moment is the Revolutions podcast, which is a wonderful (and incredibly entertaining) podcast of the history of political revolutions. The podcast is actually just wrapping up now with its 103rd episode on the Russian Revolution (and that's just the episodes on Russia!), and it has inspired me in countless ways that I plan to explore in upcoming work. I also listen to a bunch of podcasts relating to current events that I also find inspiring, and I love to read biographies of philosophers and scientists, which I also find inspiring and which help provide insight as to how other thinkers saw the world and solved problems (some good recent books I've read include this and this). Finally, when it comes to my work in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of physics, I've been inspired by simply playing videogames and recording and listening to music! 

What about you all? Where do you get your philosophical inspiration and ideas from?

Mentioning going up for tenure in a job letter?

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

When going up for tenure and applying for other jobs, are there advantages to mentioning in a job application cover letter that you're going up for tenure at your current institution but nevertheless deeply serious about the other job to which you're applying?

My sense, having served on numerous search committees now, is that this is probably a very good idea. When reading a job application, it can be pretty obvious that an applicant is up for tenure (they've been in a TT job at their university for 5 years, which is right when one applies for tenure). Further, I would not be at all surprised if some (or even many) search committee members might think, "This person is just applying to jobs in case they are denied tenure", which could very well lead them to discount the application. I'm not sure how much discussing things in a cover letter might help, but if you could show that you are a better fit for the university in some way or that you have ties in the area (such as family), that might serve to assuage any worries a search committee might have.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? It would be great to hear from search committee members here (and if they do weigh in, to hear what type of university/department they are in, as I suspect that different types of departments--ones at R1s, SLACs, etc.--might think about these kinds of things differently)!

Listing external examiner service on a CV?

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

I am an ECR (~5 years post-PhD) and I am starting to get my first invitations to be an external examiner for PhD and MA theses. Is this something one should list on one's CV? (It seems prima facie like an indicator of scholarly esteem.) If so, how? (what section should it go in, what information should one provide, etc.)

Good questions. This does seem like something to list on a CV, and one reader submitted the following reply:

List it under teaching. I have a section on my c.v. labelled teaching. There is a subsection labeled (i) Courses taught, another labeled (ii) Supervision, and another labeled (iii) Educational training and development. Under supervision I list post-docs supervised, PhD committees served on, Masters theses supervised, and various Masters projects supervised. I have another section labelled Refereeing and Evaluations. The subheadings include: journals, publishers, conferences and projects, funding agencies, editorships and editorial boards, and "PhD theses, tenure and promotion reviews, and hiring" (I have been an external evaluator for jobs at other universities - common in Europe).

I would have thought it should be listed under "service", or at least, this is probably where someone would (and should) list it at my university. At my university, teaching (as defined in the faculty handbook for annual merit raises, tenure, and promotion) only applies to courses officially taught at the university--all else is considered research or service. So, I guess what I would advice ECR to do is to see which category it fits in best where they are and put it there. But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

Tips to shorten course prep?

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

I'm a grad student that started teaching. I am spending literally an entire day and sometimes more preparing for lectures. Reading, rereading, writing notes, making slides. How much time do others put into prepping class? Do you have any useful tips on more efficient ways to prep?

These are excellent questions. Another reader, "Plato", submitted the following reply:

You need to set limits. Also, the strategies of flipping the classroom actually do work. You need to get students doing more of the work, and ideally, outside the classroom. That way, you facilitate a discussion, and correct misunderstandings. They will learn more, and you will not burn out. But it does take some nerve, and good planning.

I entirely agree. Prepping all day (or more) for a single class seems like way too much to me. Earlier in my career, I spent a lot more time prepping than I do now--about 2 hours per class for a 3/3 course load. That meant that I spent the better part of a day prepping for a full day of teaching three classes. But one of the best lessons I learned is the one that "Plato" suggests. Flipping the classroom, putting more responsibility on students to do work and come to class prepared to talk, can vastly lessen the amount of prep time one needs. And, to be honest, it seems to vastly improve student learning and experience. Instead of composing long lectures, compose shorter lectures with some group assignments interspersed throughout. Then give students 5-10 or more minutes to come up with answers to discuss. Also, consider requiring class participation. This past year, I required students to come to class with 3-5 questions on the daily reading (complete with page citations), and required them to say something substantive at least once per class--and if called upon to share a question, they would have to share one that hadn't already been asked (with a page citation showing that they had engaged with the text. It worked like a charm!

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? Any useful tips for the OP?

Grappling with too many ideas?

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

How to deal with the flood of philosophical ideas that come to one’s mind? I am a productive scholar (at my career stage). But the reason why I am productive is that I often get philosophical ideas that really disturb me until I get them published or at least written on paper. Whenever I got a new idea, I get genuinely excited about the idea, and I have trouble sleeping at night since the ideas keep me awake until I have written drafts on them. I am also afraid that someone else will publish my ideas before me – which is not good since very often I have new ideas. I do not want to work during office hours (only), the best thing about being a philosopher is that I can work whenever I got the inspiration. But what should I do when I have too many ideas in my head (or new ideas come too often) so that I struggle to do anything else besides writing and thinking?

These are great questions, and I'm curious to hear answers from readers. This is something that I grapple with a lot. I constantly jot down new paper ideas in the note function in my iPhone, and create new folders for them on my computer (just to remind myself of what I might work on). However, I don't actually get to writing papers on most of the ideas, and can take a while to get to the ones I do simply because there are so many of them. How do I decide what to work on? Basically, I try to rank paper ideas in my head in terms of philosophical importance, urgency (viz. how timely the idea is and how important it may be to get it published soon), and finally, confidence in my ability to get the paper done fairly quickly (I don't like to spin my wheels on papers that I'm not clear on how to complete). Finally, I take special care to ensure that I have a fair work-life balance, so that I don't spend all of my time writing and thinking (I work M-F from roughly 9am-5pm, never in the evenings, and never on the weekends). I'm not sure how helpful this will be to the OP, but hope they find it at least somewhat helpful.

What do you all think and do? If you have a flood of philosophical ideas, how do you decide what to work on? How do you deal with the concern that someone else will publish ideas before you? Finally, how do you handle the above while achieving sufficient "work life balance", so that you have time to do things other than writing and thinking?

How can we help you? (July 2022)

Now that it's been a little over a month since our last "how can we help you?" thread, it's time for a new one.

For those of you unfamiliar with this series, this is a chance for you to post openly or anonymously in the comments section below on anything you could use help with related to the profession. After you post your query in the comments section, I will then post new threads for readers to discuss your query.

As usual, feel free to ask questions on anything (within the Cocoon's mission) that you could use help with, including but not limited to:

• The job-market (applying for jobs, etc.)
• Issues in the profession (including issues of social justice)
• Graduate school
• Publishing
• Teaching
• Work-life balance
• Personal struggles
• Etc.

Fire away - we're here to help! 

Important reminder: if you submit a comment in this thread responding to someone's query, I won't post it, as this makes it difficult for me to keep track of everything in the comments section, particularly which queries I've started new threads on and which ones I have not. However, if you do post a follow-up comment, chances are good that I will post it in the new thread I start on the relevant query. So, do feel free to submit responses. Just know that they won't appear in this particular thread and might instead appear later in a new post.

Bias against innovation in peer review?

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

I don't know if this is the place to ask, but I wonder if there is some bias against innovative research in our profession, including publication. Do you have the impression that oftentimes the more interesting research has a harder time of being published than a very polished but a little boring paper? I have gone through a few rounds of grad student admissions, and I found that many colleagues are more sympathetic towards all-round okay candidates than those who appear to be very innovative but not so okay in some respects. I judge the latter to have a higher intellectual ability but the former seems to be standardly preferred. Sorry about the ranting---I am not sure if it makes sense to anybody besides me.

This is an interesting question, and I'm curious what readers think. Thankfully, there's actually quite a bit of research on this question on peer review in general, which Liam Kofi Bright, Remco Heesen, and I briefly touch upon on pp. 21-22 in our forthcoming BSPS paper, "Jury Theorems for Peer Review." In brief, to the extent that this has been studied, peer review does appear to have a conservative/status quo bias (see also here). But, in a way, this seems entirely natural to me. As the saying goes, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Insofar as innovative work takes chances and pushes the envelope (so to speak), it's quite natural for readers to be skeptical about it (this also just seems plausibly on Bayesian grounds). Fortunately, if the history of philosophy and science have shown anything, it's that innovative work can pass peer review regardless--and, of course, most of us serve as reviewers. So, if the OP is frustrated by what they take to be a bias against innovation, there are at least two things they can try to do to change things: try to publish innovative work and be open to it as a reviewer!

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

NPM paperback edition & review

This is just a quick note that my 2020 book, Neurofunctional Prudence & Morality: A Philosophical Theory, is now out in paperback ($22.95). The book also just received this nice review in Journal of Moral Philosophy, where Gregory Robson (Iowa State University) calls it "a stimulating and important book on the natures and complex interrelations of prudence, morality, and neuroscience." You can get another 20% off by entering the discount code below!: