The Philosophers' Cocoon

Philosophical friends and epistemic partiality in friendship

The history of philosophy is replete with passionate, deep, and inspiring philosophical friendships.

Consider Huizi and Zhuangzi, Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes, David Hume and Adam Smith, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour, and the “Somerville Quartet” of women philosophers in Oxford during and after the Second World War, Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch and Mary Midgley. Two recent books have been devoted to the lives of this group of friends, Metaphysical Animals (by Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman) and The Women are up to Something (by Benjamin Lipscombe).

 

Postcard from Iris Murdoch to Philippa Foot, 1959. Credit: Kingston University Archives

The Somerville Quartet

In her essay review of both books, Jennifer Frey highlights the epistemic benefits of philosophical friendship. It afforded these women a unique way of doing philosophy, that is, a unique set of philosophical practices that Frey did not think possible when she was an undergraduate, and when philosophy was presented to her (as it is to many of us) as masculine and solitary:

What is so startling and attractive about the love between Anscombe and Foot is that in spite of all their differences—of temperament, religion, class background, appearance, domestic circumstances and even politics and morals—they were able to draw close together based on their mutual desire to see their way through the philosophical problems that had gripped their imaginations and to make progress in their own search for a philosophical account of human experience. At the root of their affection lay a common goal—a search for insight and answers to the questions that were troubling them, a struggle they undertook together over the course of their lives in a spirit of cooperation and mutual aid. They did not always agree, but their respect for one another’s minds anchored their friendship.—Frey, The Somerville Quartet, The Point Magazine 2022

Epistemic Partiality

In the epistemic partiality literature, started by an influential paper by Sarah Stroud (2006), the thought is often that we should (or in fact should not) lower the epistemic bar for our friends. Stroud fleshes this out in the following way: the distinctive phenomenology and attitudes of friendship prompts us to adopt a set of unique doxastic practices that apply to our friends, such as believing them more readily then we would strangers, or treating negative accounts about our friends with excessive scrutiny. Differently put, we are biased when we deal with our friends. Epistemic partiality in friendship might mean that we “violate the standards of epistemology,” as Sandy Goldberg summarizes it.

But I wonder if we should flatten the epistemology of friendship in this way as just adopting different (lower) standards to certain propositions. Philosophical friendships show that the epistemology of reasoning with your friends indeed is subject to a distinctive set of norms and practices, but these do not merely amount to lowering the bar. Let me speculate how this might be.

Loneliness in academic life?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, 'One Hundred Semesters of Solitude' writes:

I'd like to initiate a conversation about the unexpected and honestly often quite difficult loneliness of having chosen an academic career. Note that I'm NOT looking for some Cocoon-style "what are *your* thoughts" on how to DEAL with this loneliness. That's partially what therapy is for, and the solutions to loneliness and solitude are pretty well-known regardless of what profession you choose (find hobbies, volunteer, put yourself out there, etc.).

What I'd like to ask is just how many people, like me, have kind of been surprised by how much less of a social network we have than other friends and non-academics at similar career stages. Here's the factors that affect my life, and I'm wondering how common these are. Again, I'm NOT looking for advice.

1) Lack of social connections from past stages of life -- Some people are able to build social circles out of their college or childhood friends and their mutual connections. However, because I chose to pursue a PhD in my 20s and partially because my program was far away from where friends from my BA ended up, I fell out of contact with many if not most of my college connections. None of my friends from college are nearby geographically. So that makes this source of social interaction slim pickins'. How many others have this experience?

2) Lack of social connections from work -- I'm in my mid-30s and I have a TT position in a major city! So I pretty much hit the lottery. However, I've learned that folks in other industries (tech, law, finance, etc.) often find a majority of their friends from their workplace. This is because these other workplaces are largely populated by people in a (1) similar age bracket who (2) are also looking for new social connections.

However, in academia, it's possible that neither of these factors applies. I am the youngest member of my department by a good 10 years and (nearly) everyone else lives in the suburbs with a family. Nobody is really looking for a buddy to go check out bars with on weekends.

Also, my institution (somewhat anecdotally) seems to do a really bad job of connecting its junior faculty with each other. Previously, when I worked at a much smaller institution, there were TT faculty orientations, meet-and-greets, and so on. At my current institution, there's been none of that.

Anyway, these factors have also made this source of social interactions very hard. How many others have experienced this?

3) The inherent social isolation of academic work -- The other obvious factor that makes it hard to develop meaningful social connections at work is that, unlike say tech or law or finance, academic work in the humanities is almost entirely solo. Most of us aren't running labs, with grad students and postdocs filing in and out and so on. And barring the odd committee assignment where people aren't rushing to leave the Zoom room, literally all of my work is conducted by myself.

I write by myself. I lesson prep by myself. Teaching isn't technically "by yourself," but you all know that it practically is, since undergrads are basically automata a little less able than ChatGPT (only barely joking). It's possible to work an entire semester quite productively without an actual interaction with another person, and I think I actually have had more than one such semester.

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I think these are the biggest couple of factors, but other additional factors might include whether someone is romantically paired or single, the fact that academics work a unique kind of schedule, and so on.

Again, I'm NOT looking for advice on how to make friends, etc. I'm just curious as to how many other Cocooners have noticed and perhaps been surprised by the loneliness that comes with academic life.

I suspect this query resonates with a lot of people, particularly those who work in small departments with high teaching loads. It definitely resonates with me. My university does a good job of building connections between junior faculty, but otherwise, all three of the OP's major points apply to me. 

What about you all? Have you found your career in academia unexpectedly lonely? If so, for what reasons--the same as the OP's?

Philosophical competence, language, and the perplexing Gavagai problem

Many grad students at the department where I work (Saint Louis University, philosophy) are fluent Latinists. In the hallways they make constructions such as these for fun in Latin (I am unfortunately not so endowed, so I’ll give you my approximation in English):  

Q: Whether it is true that there are alligators in Florida?

A: It might seem there are no alligators in Florida, for such reports are no more than hearsay…

In this respect, my department is somewhat of an outlier. Even passive competence in a second language at anglophone departments is at an all-time low, and language requirements at universities are being cut back or altogether axed. This lack of linguistic competence presents a problem: it cuts us off from our own rich philosophical traditions and it prevents serious and deep engagement with other traditions where the primary texts are in languages other than our own.

Christoph Harbsmeier, at a conference in Singapore I attended just now, lamented this loss of language. He is a senior German scholar of Chinese, and spent time in multiple countries. He worked at the University of Oslo, where he spoke with the legendary Arne Naess in Norwegian. In addition, he not only speaks Mandarin fluently (and reads classical Chinese as one might expect from a scholar in Chinese history and linguistics), he also knows Latin, Greek, some Sanskrit, French, German (of course), Polish (which he said he took with the sole aim to better understand Tarski—given the notorious complexity of this language I hope for his sake Tarski was worth it for him), and, of course English.

Each of us ESL speakers has at least two languages, a fact that is curiously regarded as an impediment rather than an advantage because of the worry of non-idiomatic English (see some more thoughts on English as a lingua franca by Eric Schwitzgebel, here).

In Harbsmeier’s view, any philosopher who is only competent in English (or any other language for that matter), suffers a severe cognitive and epistemic disadvantage. The starting point for his talk was W.V.O Quine’s problem of radical translation (discussed in Word and Object, 1960) where a native speaker exclaims “Gavagai!” and you, a linguist, wonder whether this word might mean “rabbit.” In a similar vein, should we translate the crucial Confucian concept of cheng as sincerity, authenticity, or wholeheartedness? The holism inherent in Quine’s conception of language and thought threatens any adequate translation of cheng because to really understand this idea it you must know that Confucianism is among others about self-authentication, getting rid of doxastic and motivational conflicts, and become whole within yourself as you avail yourself of the finely-honed cognitive technology of the rituals of the sage kings of the Western Zhou.

Closely connected to linguistic competence is cultural competence. Harbsmeier agreed with someone during the Q and A that some translations are relatively speaking straightforward, for instance, as his interlocutor said, “a rose is a rose is a rose”—this is, allegedly, a straight botanical fact. However, as Gertrude Stein already implied when she penned that famous line, the point is that a rose is not just a rose. A rose is a flower with rich cultural connotations that vary across cultures.

In a recent public address, Harvey Lederman argues for the disciplinary autonomy of Chinese philosophy. He argues that such work involves, necessarily, a close, patient, unglamorous engagement with the primary sources in their original language, reading them with “rigor, care and precision.” Herein lies an enormous difficulty for those who, like me, merely dabble in Chinese philosophy and only have a bit of Mandarin and even less classical Chinese.

The severe difficulty of relying on translation was recently brought vividly to me in a graduate seminar where my students and I looked at Wang Yangming’s responses to questions posed by students on the Great Learning (da xue), a chapter in a pre-Qin Confucian text. Wang Yangming, a Ming dynasty neo-Confucian author, objects to Zhu Xi’s interpretation of the relevant lines in Great Learning. He says:

And so, enlightening one’s enlightened Virtue must find expression in loving the people, and loving the people simply is the way one enlightens one’s enlightened virtue. (Trans PJ Ivanhoe) 

Wang, unlike his predecessor Zhu Xi, does not think enlightening one’s enlightened virtue (ming ming de) lies in renewing the people but in loving the people. He objects to Zhu Xi’s innovation in this text which had snuck in since the Song dynasty. Wang preserves the older meaning. But how could renewing and loving the people be two such different readings of the same text?

One of my grad students who is Chinese and visiting from mainland China explained that it is a confusion or perhaps deliberate emendation on Zhu Xi’s part where loving the people (qinmin 親民, where the sense of love is specifically proximate or familial) became to renovate or renew (xinmin,新民), that is the same character as for New Years (xin nian). This and other subtleties you will not get if you do not study classical Chinese.

So much of our competence in other languages is down to linguistic luck. You have moved as a child or as an adult, or as in my case, grew up in Belgium where it is obligatory to learn the three national languages (French, Dutch/Flemish, and German) and the education is of good quality. Beyond that, there is a genuine problem of investing in another language even in graduate school. Learning a language is slow, unrewarding, and unproductive for a significant period. You must submit obediently (as Iris Murdoch, I believe, pointed out) to the peculiarities of the language. In that respect, learning a language in its slowness and lack of immediate reward mimics the model of Chinese philosophy as Lederman puts forward: patient, unglamorous, slow.

Our students are already expected to do so much. It is unsurprising that language and logic and other such requirements that emphasize a certain well-roundedness are disappearing as the pressures mount to publish. Whereas it was fine to just focus on coursework in the first years (I’m taking the American context here, I know it differs between countries) they must now also already do “their own” research so as to get ahead in the publication game (as this question by Lila Graham makes clear).

Thoughts on networking: the good, the bad, the tacky

Early-career academics often get some version of this advice:

“Network already! Don’t be worried if it feels distasteful. Just call it “professional friendships.” It’s vital for your career.”

I’ve been thinking about putting the onus on networking on early-career academics like this. How, if at all, are we to think about informal relationships in academia?

The tacky utilitarian calculus

The blanket advice to network is almost always bad. It doesn’t take into account the very unequal structures under which we’re supposed to be doing this. Some people can count on introductions from their fancy advisors at prestigious schools. Others must do it on their own. We have differences in temperament: some of us are shy and introverted, others are sociable and outgoing. Some of us are first-generation, have had working-class upbringing (like me), and the social decorum of networking activities such as dinners at restaurants feel daunting and alienating when we first engage in them.

The calculus underlying networking (or however you call it) is cold, utilitarian, and often tacky. Here are some common scenarios that I’ve seen or that people talked to me about after they happened:   

“The professor began to talk to me during the break at the conference, but then he looked at my name badge and he abruptly stopped, mid-sentence, and left.”

At a garden party in Oxford, hosted by a professor who lived there, a postdoc talked to an Oxford don, and he introduced himself. The don asked, “so you’re a postdoc,” and the postdoc replied, “yes at [European, non-UK] university.” Upon which the Oxonian philosopher abruptly turned away and went to talk to others.

An early-career philosopher attended a small-scale workshop with mostly tenured very senior philosophers and there were only a few slots for non-invited contributions, “Almost nobody talked to me during those two and a half days. I tried to initiate some conversations, but nobody seemed interested to talk.”

In the days of in-person interviews and the big reception (the “Smoker”) at the APA, I would see large groups of people throng around the faculty of the most prestigious American departments, whereas some other people were mostly standing by themselves, holding a drink, not having anyone to talk to. They could’ve talked to each other, but they did not, presumably hoping to network “upward” as they had been advised to do.

The unequal playing field and the cold networking calculus are sides of the same coin. You’re incentivized to consider: who is worth spending time with? How can I optimize my time at this conference by networking with important people who might further my career?

It’s no surprise that a name badge with a non-prestigious affiliation or things that signal “graduate student” or “contingent faculty “can become a sufficient reason to break a conversation off mid-sentence, unhindered by any sense of decorum.

Working in philosophy of religion and seeking R1 jobs?

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

I am a PhD student with an interest in philosophy of religion. A professor recently advised me not to publish anything with religious content unless and until I receive tenure, since (in his experience) hiring committees heavily discriminate against religious people.

I have two worries about this advice. First, I doubt I will be very happy or productive if I do not write about philosophy of religion, at least occasionally. (I am interested in lots of other kinds of philosophy, but none so much as philosophy of religion.) Second, I have already published in philosophy of religion. (To make things worse, the relevant papers are -- horror of horrors -- arguments for theism.) So, it might be too late for me.

I used to think that allegations of anti-religious discrimination in philosophy were overblown, but reading this blog -- in particular, reading comments from posters who seem to regard religious people as their moral inferiors, or unfit to be their colleagues -- has changed my mind. I am quite worried about how this state of affairs could affect my family. (This also makes me worry that any hesitancy on my part to publish in philosophy of religion would be due to cowardice.)

What do you all think about this? I should emphasize that I am aiming for a research job at an R1 university, not a teaching job at a religious college. (I am aware that the odds of landing such a job are prohibitively long, but I am aiming for one anyway.)

I'm not sure that I have good answers to this question. I know some very good philosophers who work in philosophy of religion (including, I think, some who work at R1s), and I guess my sense is that there are some R1s (Notre Dame?) where work in philosophy of religion would be welcomed. I guess I may also have some faith in my fellow philosophers that, while there may of course be some people who are biased against those who work in philosophy of religion, there are others who aren't. 

Anyway, I guess my (rather unhelpful?) advice to the OP is: do whatever work is true to yourself, and let the proverbial cards fall where they may. It's a complex world that we live in where people have all kinds of biases, there's not a lot one can do to endear oneself to everyone, and compromising one's integrity as a person or philosopher seems bad. Some people may discriminate against kinds of philosophy they don't like, but other people may be inclined in your favor, particularly if the work itself is good.

What do you all think?

The publishing arms race for philosophy students

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

Can we have a thread on publication trends among philosophy students (including BOTH those already in PhD programs AND those yet to be admitted to PHD programs)? Apologies if this has already been discussed/over-discussed elsewhere, but I read in another thread about an applicant to PHD programs already having five publications prior to even beginning their PHD education. This strikes me as ridiculous but also, perhaps, understandable in light of the publication arms race.

So, a question (and one that I'm guessing has been entertained already on this website) is: what should we (can we) do about the publication arms race in philosophy? Perhaps it needs to be tackled in conjunction with the publication arms race in academia more broadly, but perhaps not...

Further, maybe some folks this [think] it's not a problem. If this is the case, I'd be curious to hear why. For my part, I'm tired and overwhelmed by the # of publications out there...even those that just relate specifically to my sub-sub discipline.

This is a good query. I personally know of several cases of students publishing multiple papers in good journals before even getting into a PhD program--and these days, my understanding is that, generally speaking, job candidates need publications to be competitive on the market, which has indeed led to a publishing arms race. Some job candidates these days may even have more publications than the people interviewing them!

What I'm not at all sure is what, if anything, can (or should) be done about this. Do readers have any thoughts?

Women Philosophers in the Twitter ‘Manosphere’ (or, that light-hearted Hume Tweet that ended in r*pe threats)

This is a guest post by Daisy Dixon, Lecturer in Philosophy at Cardiff University

Content warning:

This post includes discussion of abusive language, misogyny, body-shaming, and rape threats. The Cocoon’s mission is to be a safe and supportive forum that focuses on issues faced by early-career philosophers. We do not believe that this precludes all discussion of sensitive topics like these, and we are hosting this discussion in the belief that a safe and supportive discussion of the author’s story is both possible and a good use of this forum’s unique space in the profession, and for the author. Readers who may be sensitive to the above elements, please take note. Also please note that the blog moderators (Marcus and Helen) will moderate discussion carefully to ensure that discussion abides by the blog’s mission.

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Having recently secured my first permanent post in Philosophy at Cardiff University (something I still cannot quite believe), two weeks ago I excitedly posted on Twitter a familiar meme: ‘What People Think Philosophers Look Like/ What We Actually Look Like’. For the respective clauses, I posted a photo of David Hume – resplendent in lace and wig – and then a photo of myself, casually dressed wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses.

Not that this Tweet needs spelling out, but the point I was making is that philosophy looks different nowadays – basically a version of the hashtag ‘#thisiswhataphilosopherlookslike’ – and this is worth celebrating.

The Tweet was also a bid to dispel stubborn beliefs about who can do philosophy. As Helen Beebee’s and Jennifer Saul’s 2021 SWIP report shows, along with other under-represented groups in philosophy (e.g., people of colour, LGBTQIA+ and those with disabilities), we still have a way to go to reach equal gender representation in academia – with women comprising 30% of permanent staff in UK philosophy faculties. So, part of the Tweet was to raise awareness that the landscape is changing, albeit slowly.

However, within an hour, the Tweet blew up.

Honest grad school advice?

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

Why doesn't anyone give honest grad school application advice? It's pretty much common knowledge, and confirmed by accessible online data (programs' grad student list that displays their background), that prestige simply matters more than anything else in applications. Despite this, it's told as if one can write a brilliant writing sample and get in anywhere. People who get in everywhere are usually NOT people with brilliant samples; it seems neither necessary nor sufficient to have even a good writing sample. Most people get cut in the initial stages before their writing samples get a careful look. The so-called *elite* schools should just state on their website that they most likely won't admit you if you're not coming from another elite institution. Whatever they say, the statistics are obvious that that's who they are admitting. Instead, everyone goes on and on about how important writing samples are, misleading, or even worse, stealing from and scamming hundreds of people every year. Why is that advisors, programs' websites, etc. don't make this extremely clear?

Fair questions. As unfortunate as it may be, I suspect that the data on this is not nearly as widely known as the OP assumes. Time and again, I've been surprised at things that many people in the profession aren't all that aware of--in large part, or so it seems, because some people don't appear to spend nearly as much time online (on blogs, etc.) as other people do. Of course, all of this is consistent with the fact that people advising undergrads and grad applicants should be aware of the relevant data, and be honest with grad applicants about their chances. But then one salient question is perhaps how to best incentivize this. Perhaps the APA could do more here? Any other ideas?

Philosophy on dying social media platforms

"I'm working through a line of thought, a feeling and an instinct. Not an original one but not one I've fully internalized or understood yet. But the way that a need to profit runs counter to the value of the internet. A need for money broke Twitter, long before the billionaire decided to do... whatever it is he's doing with it. Twitter has been aging, I think, into obsolescence for a very long time. Because the internet is evolving and shifting away from what it once was." -- DongWon Song, Literary agent

For a while now since Twitter's takeover by Musk, its users have been sensing the ship sink, not sure when or how to jump ship. One reason for this is that each social media platform has its own affordances and structures, and this importantly structures our engagement with them. I take the notion of affordances from Gibson's affordance theory (explainer here). Briefly, affordances are the way our environment shapes to behave in a certain way. The environment offers us promises (positive affordances) and threats (negative affordances). A simple example is a couch, which invites us to engage us to sit in it in a certain way, different from a hard chair without a cushion. You'll slouch in the couch due to its affordances, in a way you would never in a chair. In a similar vein, Twitter encourages a different sort of engagement compared to TikTok or Instagram, or Facebook. 

In the same way, different social media shape our engagement with others. They allow us interactions that aren't possible or a lot harder to realize in other environments. 

How does the death spiral of one or more social media platforms impact philosophy? The slow death of Twitter is not a new phenomenon. DongWon Song's observations resonate with a lot of its users. Like them, I have sensed the decline already a while ago, long before Musk bought the platform. For example, Twitter's own research had noticed that its algorithms substantially favor right-wing politicians and news outlets. 

Just speaking from my own user experience, I had noticed over the past few months that small philosophy accounts with maybe a few hundred followers that I enjoy following had become obscured by the algorithm. I went to check if they were still there. They were. I just didn't see them anymore.  So already months ago, I changed my viewing preferences so Twitter would show me the latest tweets, as more and more the same duplicate stories began to show up. I hoped this would give me again that sense of engagement and serendipitous discovery I had before. But to no avail. The platform feels hollowed out, impersonal. The capacity for thoughtful philosophical discussion dries up. 

Some thoughts on gatekeeping

Gatekeeping has a bad rap. Still, though we loathe it, academics do it all the time. Our institutions depend on the well functioning of various gatekeeping mechanisms--mechanisms that help discern what should be funded or published, and what doesn't.

For instance, I am associate editor for journals Ergo and for Journal of Analytic Theology. In addition, I review for journals and for academic book presses (e.g., Cambridge, Oxford, MIT, Routledge, and Mohrbeck Sie, where I am in the editorial board). I have been, and am currently, a reviewer for several grant agencies including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the British Academy. I help decision small grants and prizes for the APA Public Philosophy committee. Also, I regularly review the research of academics who come up for tenure and promotion. Until last year, I was on a committee for grad admissions at SLU, and presently I am on two search committees for jobs searches. 

So, a fair amount of my time is spent evaluating other people's work and trying to discern its quality. But how do we go about being gatekeepers? I think, inevitably, we end up being perhaps a little more conservative than we like, but we do have the power to shape the discipline. How the field advances depends on the quiet, often uncompensated labor of referees, editors, and other evaluators. 

When I got my first tenure and promotion file to review, I wondered how to adjudicate these and how to communicate to the committee if (fortunately  not the case for my first one) if I felt the file was a little thin, or if it plainly did not meet the criteria set out by the institution. I spoke about it at a conference over dinner to someone who has been an evaluator for many tenure and committee reviews. 

"Some people," this professor said over wine and quiche, "Feel somewhat squeamish about giving a negative evaluation. They'll resort to saying something bland or they try to talk up what they believe is insufficient."

"So," I asked "How about you?"

"Well I am not squeamish," he replied "I am part of academia, and tenure and promotion is part of that institution. I value tenure and the academic freedom it affords, but tenure depends on the procedure of the tenure and promotion process. While in most cases, the body of research presents a clear case in favor of tenure, it sometimes doesn't, and the committee needs to know that. I need to be honest and diligent in my assessments."

I often think back of this reply and how it can be generalized. When people violate this implicit norm/social contract, problems might arise.

Data Analysis of the PGR (by Frank Saunders Jr.)

Frank Saunders Jr. (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Yonsei University UIC) writes in:

I wanted to share a project that I thought readers of the blog might enjoy: interactive dashboard visualizations of the 2021-2022 PGR results. I've created a total of 10 dashboards that can all be found along with explanations on my website here. I hope that prospective students and other interested readers might find the PGR data a bit more navigable and potentially useful in this form rather than in table form alone. In particular, the visualizations make it very easy to compare a school’s overall score with its score within an area of philosophy.

[T]he visualizations are now part of a bigger project I’m working on, Data Analysis of the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR), which includes creating a relational database for all public PGR data from 2006 onward, creating new visualizations of different data points, and offering analyses. This project is still in its early stages, so I’d be very keen to learn what sorts of data points or analyses readers would be most interested in seeing studied or visualised. 

Journals & conflict of interest declarations

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

I recently submitted a paper to Phil Studies, which was sent back by Springer's editorial office because I didn't include a conflict of interest statement *in the blinded manuscript*.

I have never been required to do this before, and it seems quite obvious that this potentially violates the manuscript's anonymity. For example, my research is funded by a scholarship that is only awarded once every year, so it is very easy to deduce my identity.

Has anyone heard of such requirements before? I just cannot quite comprehend that this is the policy at Springer journals, but maybe I'm missing something.

I have to confess that I've puzzled over this too, as it has happened to me too. Another reader submitted the following reply:

Once one of my manuscripts was bounced back for the same reason, but then all they wanted me to write down was a line that essentially said, "Here is my statement on conflicts of interest. There aren't any". So, it did not violate anonymity, but it did feel silly.

This seems right (it's what I've done too), but it still raises the questions: (1) Why are some journals now doing this?, and (2) is there any (justified) point to it?

How are pieces in pop culture volumes viewed?

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

How do people (especially those on hiring committees, tenure committees, etc.) view publications in special volumes on pop cultural topics? E.g., Philosophy and Dragons, The Ethics of Middle-earth? Is there any professional value? Does it leave a negative impression?

Good questions. My sense is that the answers to them may depend a lot on the kind of college or university in question. One reader submitted the following reply:

I was editing a volume for a leading press, and one of the referees objected to the inclusion of a paper by an author of one of these popular pieces - this is merely a correlation. They never explicitly mentioned the publications. But I doubt this helped the person.

It's honestly a bit shocking to me that someone would object to including an author in an edited volume simply because the author published a pop culture piece. Then again, the longer that I've been in academia, the fewer things surprise me. There are always naysayers, and I have little doubt that some people may look down on these kinds of publications. On the other hand, I know someone at a teaching-focused university whose pop culture piece was one of the main things their tenure committee focused on in favor of tenure. They loved it, as apparently did the university's administrators. 

I'm curious to hear what other people think, particularly people who have served on hiring or tenure committees. I've written two pieces for pop culture volumes, and frankly I don't care what anyone thinks of it! I doubt they've had much (if any) "professional value" for me, but I've enjoyed writing them tremendously and think philosophy as a discipline can only benefit from this kind of stuff.

The wagon has three wheels: Reimagining philosophy of action from a working class perspective

This is a guest post by Deborah Nelson

Bio: Deborah Nelson received a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from Brandeis University in 2014 and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from UCR in September 2022.  Her dissertation examined the philosophy of action literature for class-centrism and proposed advancing this literature by balancing the current focus on stability with flexibility in order to address increasing complexity in agents’ lives. She now works as an Instructional Designer at XCITE, UCR’s center for teaching and learning.

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There’s a story my family likes to relay about my father as a child that has had a formative impact on how I approach claims about knowledge, rationality, and the evaluation thereof.  The one-sentence summary of the story is that, when he was five years old, my dad took an IQ test and only got one question wrong.  The more interesting facet of this story, though, is revealed by examining that one question.

The test question displayed a picture of a wagon with only three wheels and asked what was wrong with the wagon.  It just so happened that there was a three-wheeled wagon in regular use in my father’s household, which still functioned perfectly well, so he could not identify the problem with the wagon.  Needless to say, when I learned this story at a young age, it gave me early ideas about the ways that experience can affect how people perceive and understand the world, and the discussions in recent years of problems with IQ testing, as well as other standardized tests, have only added fuel to this fire.  These intellectual proclivities have clearly inspired my research interests and I just recently defended a dissertation at UCR which reflects them.

In my early days in philosophy, I was excited to learn that there is a whole subdiscipline dedicated to how people reason about which actions to take, but became less enthused as I learned that the concerns within it did not resemble my experiences.  Within the philosophy of action, the concerns seem to reflect that of people who enjoy economic advantage.  The agents described (directly or indirectly) as ideals in this literature are self-complete entities, who consistently resist temptation, retain stable intentions and characters, and have life-defining projects and plans, etc.  This focus seems, to my working-class-inspired mind, to ignore some central concerns and ideals for which my background prepared me.  

For the present, however, I don’t plan to criticize the current state of the literature.  Not only does it take a significant amount of space to argue for the structural biases that would inform this kind of gap between theory and experience, I just defended a whole dissertation on this topic.  Instead, I want to explore what taking up the perspectives of economically disadvantaged agents could add to the dialectic.  To that end, I want to propose three concerns which would likely garner more attention were the philosophy of action literature written by people whose backgrounds more resemble my own.  In doing so, I am not implying that the current literature could not take up these norms, but I am suggesting that were they to be taken up in a more substantial way, it would help to make that literature more salient to economically disadvantaged agents.

1. Flexibility

One of the more prominent ideals in the existing literature is that of stability; reasoners should keep their intentions and plans stable, display stable traits and characters, and must resist giving into temptation. 

Is PhD life hostile to families? (and beyond...)

Jared Oliphint (PhD, Texas A&M) has an interesting substack post up entitled, 'Why a PhD Program Is a Hostile Environment for a Family', which is in a sense less about PhD programs per se than 'PhD life' (broadly construed). A few snippets:

So what makes PhD life so hostile to families?

1. The Big One: Lack of Income

...Any philosophy graduate program worth considering will be funded, which means tuition is all or mostly covered, and you get an annual stipend over the life of your program ranging anywhere from $12k-$25k, in exchange for being a teaching assistant, a research assistant, or teaching your own courses. This will put you below the poverty line even if you are single.  It is extremely challenging to cover basic living expenses if that stipend is your sole source of income, even if you’re single, and it’s impossible to do so if you have a spouse and kids. The math doesn’t add up...

2. The Psychological Toll

…the psychological challenges of grad life are real and constant. You’re doing all this work in social isolation while in the back of your mind you know that there is a good chance you will have little or no employment payoff at the end of it.

I’ll give you an example. While I was looking at job listings in my field over this past year, a realization hit me like a ton of bricks: in the mainstream academic world, the skills I have trained for and honed for years are simply not valued, financially speaking. I was perusing philosophy jobs and noticed that Mississippi State University had an opening to teach in their department. It was one of the temporary positions I mentioned above: only 9 months (an academic year), and it paid $36k. Now, MSU is an R1 institution with a lot of financial resources, and a quick google search reveals that they recently set a fundraising record. Another quick google search reveals that the average public school teacher salary in Mississippi is…$48k. So if I was “lucky” enough to land this position at MSU after years of successfully grinding through a PhD, I would be making as much as the average public school teacher, but without the stability of long-term employment...

3. Isolated Work

The nature of graduate work is also unique... The level of research you need to achieve to be successful... requires a long-term physical space that is isolated and distraction-free, and such a space can be especially difficult to find with a family...

But the constant isolation is bound to have both short-term and long-term effects on your family and social life, in a way I haven’t yet figured out or processed...

The other unique part is the ever-present, relentless time-limit of your work in the program. You feel the constant pressure of completing the dissertation, of course, but sometimes even more important is the unavoidable, intense pressure to get your papers accepted at conferences, and to publish in a good journal before going on the academic job market...That job cycle can be indescribably tough on a family in many ways: financially, socially, psychologically, etc. In many cases those costs can be too high to be worth whatever the gains are.

Oliphint concludes the piece by making it clear that, 'I don’t want this post to read as a list of complaints; if it reads that way I’ve done something wrong.' Rather, as he puts it:

Being in a graduate program is a privilege, and getting accepted happens because of some mysterious proportion of merit and luck. I’m thankfully on the other side of all this, so I no longer have to navigate some of the intense challenges. My primary reasons for writing this post have been to warn those who may be thinking about applying to grad school (particularly in philosophy), and simply to provide a window into the tragically unique trials and challenges that have more to do with daily living than with the academic demands like presenting at conferences, getting published, pleasing an advisory committee, etc., which obviously provide their own unique trials and challenges. I could say quite a bit about the ways a PhD program is unimaginably difficult, academically speaking. I’ll probably say more about that broad topic at some point, but I wanted to focus here on why PhD programs are unavoidably hostile environments for grad students who enter the program with a family, or who start a family at some point during the program. 

I don't have children of my own yet, but I do have a spouse who suffered with me during the end of graduate school and during my seven years on the job-market--and when it comes to my family as such (including my extended family), Oliphint's post very much speaks to my experience. Further, now that I think about it, all three of Oliphint's major sources of hostility to family life seem to me to be hostility to individual and family well-being more broadly, including the well-being of those who don't have families. After all, financial insecurity, isolated work, and the psychological toll of grad school and the job-market all apply to single individuals too, though perhaps not in the same ways. In fact, some of the things Oliphint discusses--such as the isolating nature of grad work--might be even worse in certain ways for single people (who may have few, if any, loved ones to turn to for daily support). So, perhaps the real issue--or rather, more complete picture--is that grad life is profoundly hostile to individual and family flourishing. That seems very bad, but again, not at all inconsistent with my own experiences over the course of my career, both as a (formerly) single person (and son), and now as a husband.

Anyway, I'm curious. Did Oliphint's post speak to you, as it did to me? Or, if you had a family in grad school, did you have a very different experience? Finally, to the extent that you may share Oliphint's experiences, what (if anything) do you think grad programs or the profession more broadly could do to do better and be more supportive--both with respect to family life, but also (for reasons noted above) individual well-being too?

Philosophy majors: how many credits?

I'm curious: how many credit hours are required for the Philosophy major in your departments? Asking for a friend!

The ways we don't do research, because they don't exist

Helen's interesting post yesterday, 'The journals we don't write in, because they don't exist', about how philosophy journals might become fruitfully more diverse got me thinking more about a topic that I've been thinking about lately: namely, ways that today's technology and a new publishing model might fruitfully alter how we do research.

Readers may recall that Liam Kofi Bright, Remco Heesen, and I advocate in a new BJPS paper for a crowdsourced online approach to peer review. Although Heesen and Bright advocate elsewhere for abolishing traditional peer-review at journals, I am more inclined to support a hybrid approach to peer-review closer to that currently practiced in math and physics: one that combines traditional peer-review at journals with a crowdsourced approach. This is for a couple of reasons. First, insofar as some are skeptical of the utility of a crowdsourced approach, a hybrid approach would be a more conservative change to peer-review than abolishing journal review altogether. Second, the hybrid approach has already been implemented in other fields (see above), and seems to work well. Finally, insofar as (our arguments for crowdsourcing aside) there are arguably virtues and vices of both approaches to peer-review, a hybrid approach can stake a reasonable claim to be a 'best of both worlds' approach.

In today's post, I want to discuss one potential benefit that changing peer-review might have that has not, to my knowledge, been much discussed: namely, how it might revolutionize how we do research in a good way. In their earlier paper, 'Is Peer Review a Good Idea?', Heesen and Bright examine various potential benefits of abolishing traditional peer review at journals, including:

1. Improving the dissemination/sharing of scientific results
2. Improved time allocation (traditional peer-review is extremely time intensive)
3. Reducing gender skew in publications
4. Reducing costs of publishing/freeing up library resources
5. Reducing professional focus on 'short-term credit' (which favors publishing lots of articles) in favor of long-term credit (i.e. impact)
6. Reducing the role of powerful gatekeepers

Whatever you may think of these potential benefits (including whether they really would be benefits), here is another possible benefit of transitioning toward a more open, online approach to peer-review (including the hybrid journal + crowdsourced approach that I favor): it could substantially increase philosophical and interdisciplinary collaboration, in ways that might not only lead to better research, but help authors deal with a quandary that I expect that all too many of us face. Allow me to explain.

Updated ADPA job placement data & table

Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced) has a new post up at the ADPA blog describing the results of "ten years of data for around 140 [PhD] programs, nearly 50 of which have so far been able to verify our data."

There is also a new sortable table at the ADPA site where one can learn about job-market placements from different programs. As the following table illustrates, some of the data is very illuminating:

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.

Universities treating students as customers

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

At my university (in Australasia) administrators have claimed that students are customers or clients, using terms like "stakeholders" to describe not only current enrollees but also school leavers we are "targeting" for "marketing purposes." A few years ago I read a comprehensive article that argued why we shouldn't believe that students are customers. I'd like to hear from readers of the Cocoon whether they agree or disagree with my administration's sentiment, i.e., that students are customers and that we faculty are contractually obligated to provide them with a product (a degree?) or service (learning?). Second, if readers have recommendations for where I can find arguments like this (either for or against the aforementioned thesis), I'd appreciate them sharing the URL or source. Thank you!

I'd love to hear what readers think about this too. I've always naturally rebelled against this way of conceiving students, considering a university education a privilege rather than a purchased product. I suspect that many (most?) readers will object to this way of conceiving of students too, but that most of us also probably recognize that, regardless, universities have become big businesses. Not sure what can be done about it, but I'd be very curious to hear what other readers think about all of this! 

Public philosophy is an oligopoly--and here why this is a problem

Some recent takes on the Enlightenment resonated strongly with the broad public. This includes Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress  (2018), and David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021).

I'm not going to write a detailed analysis of these books (I have done so for Graeber and Wengrow, which will appear at some point). Suffice it to say here, while I think there are some merits in both works, they also suffer from deficiencies in the conceptualization of what the Enlightenment is, its influences, and also the broader implications. 

And this is not a surprise, given that any scholarly domain of expertise requires significant research and experience, which neither of these authors can profess on the Enlightenment. Maybe you, like me, would love to see a book on the Enlightenment reach the big public that is written by an actual specialist in 18th-century western philosophy or history. Sadly, no Enlightenment scholar has been able to resonate so well with the public as these two works (if I am mistaken and there is a NYT bestseller book on the Enlightenment, please let me know!) 

This is a symptom of a larger phenomenon, an oligopoly within pop culture. As backed up with detailed data in this post by Adam Mastroianni, a few franchises (reimaginings, live-action remakes, sequels, same universe movies) dominate pop culture and the phenomenon has worsened significantly over the last decades. A few winners take up an increasing portion of the market share, leading to a decrease in diversity of output.

Sometimes philosophers are still asked "Why don't you do public philosophy?" as if this is a supply-side issue. It is not. There has never been more public philosophy available than at present, many of it is publicly available. Magazines such as The Philosophers' Magazine, Aeon, Psyche, and many others feature public philosophy from a wide range of thinkers. Podcasts such as Hi-Phi nation, Philosophy without Any Gaps, and What's Left of Philosophy  offer professionally produced, engaging and intellectually stimulating content. Individual philosopher YouTube channels make philosophy accessible to everyone, including Ellie Anderson's continental philosophy series, Greg Sadler's Speculative fiction series and Bryan Van Norden's Chinese philosophy class lectures. 

So, when the public turns to Jordan Peterson to look for life advice, rather than to philosophers, it is not because of the supply side. There is really no reason to shame, say, an Aristotle scholar into doing public philosophy in the hopes that her work will reach a disaffected teen who is wondering how to live the good life, and faute de mieux, turns to Peterson. There is already a lot out there (of course, we should welcome and support this hypothetical Aristotle scholar if she wants to do public philosophy!)

We should also recognize that there are very, very few academics who can make it as public intellectuals, for reasons that are totally unrelated to the intrinsic merits of their work, or even to their communication skills. 

What's happening is that public intellectuals are working in an ecology where a small number of winners get a disproportionate share in public attention and media capture. This is on the supply side part of a more general winner-takes-all mentality. For publishing with the four major fiction publishers, for instance, it was fine a few years ago to be a decent "midlister" (i.e., someone who sells books that make a profit for the publisher but will never reap high figures). But now, a beginning author must exude that ineffable quality of being a rising star, of a potential NYT bestseller author to even get a deal with an agent (and hence a publisher). As a result, many authors are querying in vain, and some have turned to self-publishing. Few self-published authors can break through into traditional markets, though several have a decent readership and make decent money from their work. 

Fortunately, as academics we can still survive and thrive as small fish. Our scholarly books get contracts based on their perceived academic merit rather than on sales potential (especially in academic presses, which are often heavily subsidized). And many of us do reach/have a significant platform beyond academia. This platform is valuable. We should support colleagues and provide institutional support for people who wish to engage in public scholarship. But it is important to note how skewed the field is, and to adjust expectations accordingly. 

It is worth thinking about why people are happy with this oligopoly--differently put, what explains the increasing homogenization in pop culture. Mastroianni speculates: 

As options multiply, choosing gets harder. You can’t possibly evaluate everything, so you start relying on cues like “this movie has Tom Hanks in it” or “I liked Red Dead Redemption, so I’ll probably like Red Dead Redemption II,” which makes you less and less likely to pick something unfamiliar. 

Philosophy is difficult. While the public struggle with philosophical questions on a daily basis (on e.g., the meaning of events in their lives, the abortion debate etc), trying to actively seek out philosophical resources that are publicly accessible is hard. People also have many other non-material needs, such as entertainment, comfort, a bit of joy, spiritual assurance, and philosophy is not a sure route to any of these things. This is why, although I think many people would benefit from engaging with philosophy, their bandwidth for it is very limited. Moreover, without media attention and platform, it is hard for the public to reach sources they might resonate well with.

I've got no easy solution how to fix this problem, but I think it is worth fixing.

We benefit from intellectual diversity in the public sphere. When diversity is mentioned, it is often in the context of viewpoint diversity (which often means that a few contentious polarized positions get a platform, e.g., on abortion and gender), but I'm interested in the broader phenomenon of a shared intellectual authority, as Helen Longino and other have detailed. 

It is no coincidence that many of the most high profile public intellectuals are at research-intensive universities, often Ivy League, where they largely compete with other similarly advantaged people for the limited attention from the public. Competition is fierce, which also provides bad incentives for giving unnuanced hot takes on recent issues. Public intellectuals at smaller colleges are sidelined, and we are the poorer for it. Public philosophers with a significant platform, who get 5-figure speaking fees (I know that this in fact happens!) should try to lift up more voices, especially when asked to speak about areas far outside of their expertise. But because the goods of being a high-profile intellectual are so significant (connections, money) there is little incentive to do so. 

I'd be interested to discuss what we can do to make more of the excellent public philosophy that is being done to trickle toward the general public. Contrary to perception, it is not a zero-sum game. If more people get interested in public philosophy, they might be tempted to engage with more public philosophical works. This would be to great mutual benefit, I think. 

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.

New Journal Announcement: Journal of Mexican Philosophy (JMxP)

This is a guest post by Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr. Associate Professor of Philosophy at Occidental College: 

 

We would like to officially announce the launch of the Journal of Mexican Philosophy (JMxP), a peer reviewed journal that aims to make Mexican philosophy available and attractive to an international community of students and scholars. The journal URL is here:

 

https://www.journalofmexicanphilosophy.org/

 

The inaugural issue features original articles by Manuel Vargas (on the philosophy of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz), Amy Oliver (on the value of Mexican philosophy today), and Guillermo Hurtado (on the problem of malinchismo), as well as an original translation of an early work by José Vasconcelos (translated by Clinton Tolley).

 

In addition to diversifying and enriching the history of philosophy, the journal aims to set a model for linguistic inclusivity in mainstream academic philosophy and to cultivate working relationships with philosophers outside the English-speaking world (our journal is bilingual and will include at least one essay by a Mexican colleague in whatever language they prefer to philosophize in). We will also include one translation of Mexican philosophy, giving priority to the contributions of women, indigenous and Afro-Carribean philosophers, and political dissidents. Please check out Volume 1, Number 1 of the journal here! 

Candidates writing their own recommendations?

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

Though I take it to be frowned upon, I get the sense from graduate students that it's very common for some senior faculty members to ask students to write their own letters of recommendation, and then edit them. I'm curious if admission committees ever feel like it is obvious that an applicant has written their own letter. Is it unethical to do so? Or are letters so 'inflated' anyways that this isn't a major concern for applicants or committees?

These are excellent questions. I too have heard of this practice, and frankly find it a bit astonishing that it apparently occurs. It sort of seems to defeat the purpose of an outside letter of recommendation to have a candidate write it themselves, no? So, I'm curious too: how common is this practice? What do readers think of it? And, do committees ever suspect that a candidate wrote their own letter? 

Using PhilPeople features to find referees?

In response to Helen's recent post on the troubles that journal editors have finding referees and comments by a number of readers there that they are rarely asked to review, Mike Titelbaum (University of Wisconsin-Madison) helpfully writes in that David Bourget and David Chalmers suggest the following feature at PhilPeople:

"Our 'find a philosopher' feature of philpeople is a good start. You have to pick the relevant topic quite narrowly and order by number of publications in the topic, past five years. That gives you as top hits people that are active in the area and have solid publication records. If you don't do 'past five years' you get more senior people, who aren't going to be new to you or likely to be available. I bet many editors would benefit from these simple instructions."

I hope this helps in some small way with the ongoing 'publication emergency', as it might help authors get more timely verdicts while better distributing the burdens on editors and referees.

Seems like the peer review system has given up the ghost

I am an associate editor for Ergo, and I was idly wondering last night what would happen once I reach Reviewer Z.

The situation is this: A minimum of two referee reports are needed for each paper that is sent out for review. Each referee is assigned a letter, and I've already burned through Referee invites A through F in a couple of days.

Each referee says the same thing "too busy". One wrote to me the following "Sorry, but this is the 13th refereeing request that I've received so far in 2022 [this was 15 February], and I've accepted most of the others. I try to limit myself to accepting about one per week on average."

Similarly, for the Journal of Analytic Theology, I along with the other executive editor and managing editor made a happy dance when finally, reviewer 8 for a very specialized paper said yes to a referee request. 

Just a couple of days ago, one of the journals I am on the editorial board for wrote to us

"Since the COVID-19 pandemic began it has been increasingly difficult for us to find referees to review papers that are submitted to our journal. At the same time, we receive more papers every year. It is common these days that we have to approach six or seven people before we are able to find someone to review a paper. In light of this situation, I would like to ask you for help and request you to review papers more frequently than before."

It has come to the point that the most suitable referee(s) for a paper are almost never available. It takes us so long to find reviewers, sometimes a month, six weeks or more (this situation is also exacerbated by the fact that many people don't respond to referee requests at all). This lengthens the span of time even more for the total review process. All sorts of small fixes don't work anymore, e.g., shortening the time that people get to review, asking for alternatives (this is still very much appreciated, but unfortunately alternative referees are just as unavailable). 

Of course, it could be that my editorial experience is atypical--I'm just one scholar.

But it is my strong suspicion that the peer review system is finally broken beyond reasonable repair. We've seen a slow worsening of the situation and the pandemic has finally broken the system. People are burnt out and overburdened, job candidates increasingly desperate. 

In light of this, we need to do something. We owe it to authors to change the system, I think, rather than tinkering at the edges. Any suggestions (ranging from proposals to overhaul the entire system and how to do this practically, such as by our own Marcus Arvan in this paper co-authored with Liam Bright and Remco Heesen) welcome. *

Conferences and professional hierarchies

On Twitter, Emily Brier (Lecturer in Composition, Western Carolina University) writes: 

Anybody want to talk about how as an MA student at conferences nobody (and I mean NOBODY) would talk to me, and when I was a CC instructor nobody TT would talk to me, and how conferences often just reinscribe hierarchy in ways that show why TT folks are itching to go back FTF?

Our own Helen De Cruz followed up:

I have been thinking about this often. FTF conferences are often touted as great networking opportunities, but if you comes from a low-prestige program or are an MA student you're often just being ignored. The APA "smoker" reception is a good example of how this works. When I was a job candidate with a diploma from an obscure European program, I'd just stand around at that reception holding a glass and no-one to talk to. Meanwhile, you had the stars from the top department everyone would flock to. Eventually, I found some other job seekers...And we had great conversations. Still, conferences reinforce hierarchies. The informality of that in between talk results in a lot of people being left out of that talk. How can conferences provide more equitable opportunities for informal networking?

These are good questions. I myself endured a few rather humiliating conference experiences early in my career, and like Helen I would often stand (and sit) around at APAs with no one to talk to. Fortunately, this has changed over time, at least in part (or so it seems to me) because I adopted Helen's own strategy: trying to talk to other early-career people like me who didn't have jobs at fancy places. This is also part of the reason why I created the Cocoon, and in fact I used to hold informal Cocoon get-togethers at APAs I attended to provide a forum for early-career people to come together and get to know each other. I'll be at the Central APA this year, so maybe I'll try to hold a get-together or meet-up of sorts. 

But in any case, do any of you have any suggestions for answering Helen's question? How might conferences provide more equitable opportunities for informal networking?

What could search committees do better?

In our job-market discussion thread, a reader writes:

I would appreciate a thread/post that provided candidates with an opportunity to discuss the "bad behavior" of hiring committees...

Given the blog's supportive mission, I don't think a thread calling out bad behavior is appropriate here. However, another reader added a nice suggestion:

In light of anonymous associate professors' post, maybe such a thread could be framed as candidates constructively reporting things that they don't like/contribute to bad mental health, etc? That might also get more uptake than people complaining, especially if people are not aware of what candidates would prefer...

My list would include:

1. Not updating shortlisted candidates who didn't make the fly out stage. (Or, more generally, not updating candidates who you told made progress but then did not advance.) It comes off as disrespectful, even cruel.
2. Not having accurate timelines. If you tell candidates you will contact them on date X, then either update them to tell them why you can't do so (e.g. delay), or be more careful about giving such estimates. Constantly waiting and checking makes it very difficult to focus, especially when you're waiting for news on a particular day.

As a quick aside, following a few other comments, my sense is that candidates may over-estimate how much control search committees have over these kinds of things, as things like HR requirements and unexpected logistical difficulties (such as delays in getting administrators to approve finalist lists, etc.) can seriously constrain what search committees can do. But, that being said, I think a constructive thread on things that candidates wish search committees would do better is a nice idea.

What do you all think? (Note: please avoid "calling out" committees or specific behaviors that an individual reading this thread might infer "they are referring to me". Instead, please post in general terms on things that you have found frustrating as a candidate and what you wish search committees would do better. Thanks!) 

Talent and Bias

By Sam Duncan

In this post I want to dig more deeply into some points about the deeply worrying effects of our belief in talent on our students made by Allison Gopnik and Eric Schwitzgebel. As Gopnik notes there’s good reason to think that there is some causal relationship between the fact that philosophy puts so much stock in talent and our lack of gender and racial diversity. And Schwitzgebel paints a very plausible picture of one way that this likely plays out in practice; as he notes it’s a lot easier for a young white guy to get away with various ploys that allow him to seem smart than it might be for a woman or a member of a minority group (It’s also a lot less risky). However, I think there are deeper ways that a belief in talent sets up bias in our field.

Let me begin with a question: When you look at student papers or consider how to respond to student comments, questions, and challenges in class do you think about whose paper it is or who made the comment? I’m betting that you do. If you make much of an effort to know who your students are it’s hard not to do this, and to a great extent this is part of getting to know our students. But this also opens up a danger of bias and believing that talent determines success in philosophy makes this danger much worse.

The job market & financial health of universities

An anonymous reader writes in:

I was recently thinking about applying to a private, non-elite SLAC simply because it's a lot closer to my and my wife's families. I decided not to for a lot of reasons but one deep hesitation I had was that I know a lot of the private, non-elite SLACs are likely to flat out fold in the next ten or fifteen years and the public ones are likely to come in for some deep cuts. This brings me to a question that I thought it would be very good to put out there: How in the world does one get any information on the financial health of the place one is applying and related stuff like enrollment trends?

This seems super important. The people who ended up getting two jobs I interviewed in the past at public SLACs have already gotten laid off. It would have been a disaster for me and my family if I'd left a renewable lecturer gig . . . that, while shitty in oh so many ways, was at least stable, for a TT gig only to get laid off in three years. It seems important that applicants know that this is a real threat they need to worry about at a lot of schools, especially SLACs.

This is a really important question, and I'm really glad someone asked it. Over the past couple of years, I too have heard of at least of a few horror stories--cases where someone was finally able to get a tenure-track job, only to see their job eliminated a year or two after they started. Alas, I'm not sure how to answer the question. You can of course ask faculty or administrators at the university about the financial health of the institution (either during an on-campus visit or after a hiring offer is extended). But, as for asking faculty, my sense is that sometimes even they can be quite in the dark about these matters, as the actual financial health of the institution may only be known by upper administration (which, I think, is why so many of the recent waves of faculty-line eliminations have come as a total shock out of the blue to those who faced them).

So, while the OP's question is a super important one, I don't have any real guidance above and beyond: ask around before accepting a job offer. But this advice probably isn't all that helpful. What do you all think? Do you have any helpful tips or insights (or personal experiences) on this issue? 

Did you receive adequate mentoring?

Laurence B. McCullough (Distinguished Emeritus Professor, Baylor) writes in:

As a retired professor, I follow your blog to keep up with what is happening in the world of philosophy.  I spent my career as a medical educator.  In the Baylor Center we (Baruch Brody and I, then the only two senior faculty) had a program for mentoring for all junior faculty.  We met with our colleagues regularly both formally and informally, read their work, advised them on academic matters, etc. 

We called what we did mentoring for success.  For example, Baruch and I mentored a junior colleague who followed Baruch as Director of our Center and therefore as my boss before I retired.  This is common, and a point of considerable pride, in the world of medical education. 

I am struck as I follow the postings on your blog by the absence of mention or mentorship.  I benefitted from mentoring when I was junior faculty, especially from a philosophy colleague at Texas A&M (where I was on medical and philosophy faculties and my first position).  I get the sense that many of our colleagues whose comments you post have no mentoring.  Perhaps mentoring – the absence of it, when it helps, when it does not help – would make a good topic for your blog.

This is an excellent query, and I'm thinking of running a short series on the topic. But, before I move forward with that, I'd like to ask the Cocoon's readers a few questions:

1. If you are a current or recent graduate student, what kind of mentoring are you receiving (viz. research, teaching, professionalization, the job market, etc.) have you received or are you receiving? Do you think the mentoring you've received is appropriate/adequate? Why/why not?
2. If you are or recently were a junior faculty member (e.g. a postdoc, TT faculty, non-TT faculty, etc.), what kind of mentoring have you received or are you receiving? Do you consider it appropriate/adequate? Why/why not?

Freelosophy: a centralized forum for commenting on philosophy papers

Two philosophers, Filippo Contesi and  Giulio Pietroiusti (University of Barcelona), have created a new site, Freelosophy, which allows users to search and leave public comments on PhilPapers or PhilArchive. Contesi writes:

In some academic disciplines, publication and discussion of articles
before journal submission is generally much more widespread than in
philosophy. Indeed, most journal publishing houses are publicly
committed to considering pre-archived papers for publication. You can
double-check this for your journal of choice here: https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

Philosophers already can make their pre-prints publicly available at
any point on at least one pre-print repository: PhilArchive.org.
However, currently existing web platforms for public discussion of
scientific pre-prints (e.g. PubPeer.org) cannot be used to discuss
PhilArchive-d papers.

So, we have created a website that allows anyone to comment freely on
papers present on PhilArchive and/or PhilPapers: https://freelosophy.github.io/
On Freelosophy, scholars can add comments to a paper (and read them)
by using its PhilPapers/Archive ID, an identifier present on the page
of each paper on PhilArchive. Each paper on PhilPapers also has its
own PhilPaper/Archive ID (in the URL).

Everyone interested is most welcome to start using our service, which
is currently in public beta. Please do not hesitate to contact us at
[email protected] for any comments or feedback.

Readers can learn more about how the site works at Daily Nous. I hope the site takes off, as I think it's a great endeavor--and I encourage the Cocoon's readers to try it out!

Retracting an accepted article from Philosophia?

Back in our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I just had a paper accepted at Philosophia two days before the really icky news broke. What do I do? Should I retract it? Interested in both moral and practical reasons to retract/not retract.

Maybe-important details: I'm an early-career philosopher in a TT job at a small school.

These are very good questions. For those of you who may be unaware of what happened with Philosophia, here is the relevant background. What do you all think? 

How many applicants do jobs receive by AOS?

(Temporarily moving to the front for further discussion)

In our job-market discussion thread, an early career philosopher asks:

I am wondering if we can have a discussion where search committees share the AOS they seek and the number of applications they received in this job cycle. I think that a post like that will be especially valuable for early careers. We know that for most open searches, a typical number is around 600, but what about areas like M&E, history, ethics, non-western, gender, race, etc,.?

This is a great query. I think it could be really eye-opening to hear from search committees about how many applicants they received by AOS. 

If you're on a search committee, please do feel free to share in the comments section how many applicants you received this year, and what the advertised AOS was/were. Please feel free to share anonymously, but if possible, please also feel free to mention what kind of position you advertised (e.g. postdoc, non-TT/VAP position, TT, etc.). I'm really curious to see people's responses!

Nominations for prizes?

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

I sometimes see 'calls for nominations' for certain prizes, e.g. the APA Article Prize. I have no idea what the norms are for these. Is it acceptable to suggest to someone that they nominate you for the prize? If so, would you only ask someone like your supervisor who knows you well and has a stake in your success, or could you also ask someone you don't know that well but who might appreciate your work? Or, is the idea really that a nominator just nominates someone whose work they appreciate, without any prior discussion?

Good questions, and I don't know the answers. What do you all think?

Inferential model on women in philosophy

Katharina Nieswandt (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Concordia University) alerted me to this new study on the gender ratio in philosophy. To the best of the researchers' knowledge, it provides the first inferential-statistical model of the causes of gender-inequality in the profession. Their primary findings?:

Overall, our findings provide (of course defeasible) evidence for the claim that students choose philosophy because they perceive a good fit between philosophy, qua requiring brilliance, and themselves, qua being brilliant, combative, systematizing, and indifferent towards “worldly rewards,” like family-life and money.

Future research should investigate whether these factors are causes of the gender gap or perhaps partly the result of a self-serving, stereotypical image that philosophy students develop after choosing philosophy as their major (perhaps reinforced by the discipline’s culture).  More research is also needed of the relations between combativeness, systematizing, and the sense of belonging in philosophy:  Is combativeness really the driving factor behind gender differences on these variables, as our research suggests?  In addition, it would be important to test to what extent our results generalize to comparisons between philosophy and other fields than psychology.

Philosophical readers will ultimately be most interested in interventions. Foundational research rarely licenses pragmatic steps directly, of course, but the following two inferences appear justified:  First, there probably is no quick fix for philosophy’s unequal gender ratio, since that might be part and parcel of a general social perception of certain abilities, character traits and life priorities as female or male.  Second, pre-university interventions might be necessary, given the well-replicated finding that gender stereotypes develop early...

To OnlyFans or Not to OnlyFans?

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

I am an early graduate student with two perhaps controversial questions, one more empirical and one normative. The first is: would it hurt (or even destroy) one’s chances on the job market if they were to pursue a part-time career in sex work while in grad school (specifically, starting an OnlyFans)? The second is: if yes, are such norms justified?

When I think of older academics on a search committee (lets broadly say “baby boomers,” particularly those with anti-porn sentiments), my intuitions tell me if someone were to find out it would likely be disqualifying. When I think of people like Amia Srinivasan and many younger philosophers, I feel like it might not be a big issue at all (but I’m really far from sure).

Finally, part of me is wondering whether I should even make decisions based on how they might affect my chances on the job market. If my chances of succeeding are already so low, part of me feels like I ought to just do what I want to do and hope for the best. Another part of me desperately wants to play the game perfectly and avoid any possible misstep, even though so many people who do this still get screwed over (I am at a top 20 university with decent placement, so getting a TT job is not completely off the table, just unlikely). In 4-5 years when I am on the job market, will I have regretted playing this game (or not)?

This a fascinating query, and I am curious to hear readers' answers to all three of the OP's questions:

1. Would it hurt (or even destroy) one’s chances on the job market?
2. If yes, are such norms justified?
3. In 4-5 years when I am on the job market, will [the OP] have regretted playing this game (or not)?

In answering/discussing them, I ask readers to focus on the professional issues involved: that is, on whether sex work (such as an OnlyFans page) would in fact hurt (or "even destroy") the OP's chances on the job-market, what the professional norms are here, and whether those norms are justified. In line with this blog's safe and supportive mission, I am going to require readers to refrain from 'sex-shaming', and I will not approve comments of that sort. For again, the OP is asking for professional advice, not commentary on their preferences, values, etc. Bearing this in mind, allow me to briefly share some thoughts, and then open things up for discussion.

The job-market dress code?

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

Can we have a discussion of the norms for job market fashion etiquette (i.e. for on-campus interviews), for both women and men. I understand the need to dress for the occasion, but it seems that everyone overdresses a little bit and ends up never wearing those outfits ever again (save at a wedding). In the case of men, for example, is one really required to wear a suit and tie? Can one get away with just a button up, slacks, and maybe a blazer (but no tie, non-matching colors, etc.). Do committee members really care about this stuff? I feel that overdressing can kill the philosophical spirit inside!

Good question. I seem to recall us discussing this on the Cocoon a while back, but I can't quite find that thread--and, in any case, norms can change over time, so it's probably good to discuss it again. What do you all think? What are job-market dress norms these days?

ADPA data on non-academic careers

Over at Daily Nous the other week, Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced) provided a 10-year update on the Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA) project, the purpose of which "is to collect, analyze, and distribute data on job placement for graduates of PhD programs in philosophy."

As a member of the ADPA's board of advisors, I volunteered to discuss the ADPA's findings on non-academic job careers for philosophy PhDs. Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) should be discussing demographic data at The Splintered Mind.

What, then, has the ADPA found about non-academic careers for Philosophy PhDs? Here is a quick summary:

(1) How many philosophy PhDs pursue non-academic careers? 

Over the past ten years (2011-21), the ADPA surveyed 6030 PhD graduates. Of those surveyed, 2606 (or 37.6%) are now in permanent academic jobs, and 846 (or 14%) are in non-academic jobs. The remaining philosophy PhDs are either in part-time academic positions or did not report.

(2) What kinds of non-academic careers are philosophy PhDs in?

Top-ten words used to describe positions (in order of frequency): Director, Manager, Senior, Associate, Assistant, Analyst, Research, Software, Teacher, and Consultant.

Top ten industries (in order of frequency, of around 800 in database): education, technology, law, health, consultancy, government, university administration, finance, non-university education, and non-profits/NGOs.

(2) What kinds of salaries do philosophy PhDs make in non-academic industry?

• Mean salaries reported 
  
  • Academic: $79,237 (n = 477)
  • Non-Academic: $179,833 (n = 42)
• Median Salaries
  
  • Academic: $73,000 
  • Non-Academic: $100,000 

(3) What kind of job-placements do PhDs prefer: academic or non-academic?

Of those who received academic jobs, 84.8% reported academic placement as their priority. However, of those who entered non-academic jobs, only 52.9% preferred academic placement, 17.6% percent preferred non-academic placement, and 29.4% reported no strong preference.

(4) Do PhD programs support students seeking non-academic placement?

• Of those who received non-academic employment (n = 63), only 17.5% felt unsupported by their graduate program.
• A plurality of (all) respondents felt their program was neither supportive or unsupportive (n = 27 or 42.9%).
• However, individuals without placement information (n = 11) unanimously indicated that they felt their graduate program was very unsupportive of pursuing non-academic careers.
• Some qualitative responses: 

The faculty of my department were unprepared to offer support for students pursuing non-academic jobs. If anything, they looked down on such students.

Nonacademic jobs were mentioned in the professional development seminar, but no real guidance was offered beyond that. There may have been other resources available, but I did not know about them.

Pursuing professions other than teaching philosophy is discouraged. Several of my fellow students did not disclose that they were interested in professions other than teaching, for example, pursuing a law degree.

Program officials and some professors have made comments supporting non-academic jobs and they occasionally offer a talk on this. However, there is no focused and continued support.

My department has taken some pretty good steps to help us with this. But during the times where I have thought about not pursuing an academic career I have felt like I had to keep it secret or the department would take me less seriously, give me less support, etc.

(5) Are philosophical skills and knowledge job-relevant?

84.1% of those in non-academic jobs found philosophical skills to be relevant to their non-academic career (n=63). Only 53.2% found philosophical material to be relevant (n=62). 

Some qualitative responses:

My work in narrative ethics informs everything I do from managing business functions such as HR, to fostering community values, developing student leadership as well as developing our marketing strategy and posting on Instagram. Everything we do as humans involves stories and sharing experiences - I have never doubted that my PhD research was valuable, practical and of ongoing benefit to me as a person and as a CEO.

Doing logic and looking at formal systems made the transition into coding and data analysis quite easy.

None of my research was directly applicable, but studying logic helped prepare me for a career in tech.

The vast majority of the topics you study in philosophy are irrelevant to work in the business world. However, the skills you develop and the techniques you learn through the practice of philosophy are invaluable. Being a strong and logical thinker is a huge asset in a business environment.

I engage in textual analysis and rational argument on a regular basis in my employment as a business lawyer -- skills that I acquired and honed in my philosophy graduate education.

The skills of reading and thinking carefully, and communicating well orally and in writing, have helped make me more effective in my position as an academic administrator.

In a generic way, the critical thinking, writing, teaching and public speaking skills I have gained have all set me apart in the workplace.

What should we take away from these findings? As with any study using non-randomly collected samples, we must be careful making strong inferences about the total population. Still, bearing this in mind, here are a few hot takes:

1. About 1 in 7 philosophy PhDs in this sample report working in non-academic careers: that's a good number of people!

2. Philosophy PhDs can end up in a variety of good non-academic careers, some of which involve learning computer programming, but many of which appear to be in well-paying, non-STEM areas (government jobs, consulting, etc.). 

3. Philosophers can make a lot of money outside of academia: of course, it is hard to know exactly how accurate this sample is, as the sample sizes are small and those who are underemployed could be less likely to report. Further, there is presumably wide variance among the salaries of those in non-academic industries. Still, the fact that philosophers can achieve high-salary positions in industry shouldn't be too surprising. Philosophers are as a rule highly talented, conscientious people who can think slowly and carefully as well as quickly on their feet; can understand and grapple effectively with very complex problems, speak persuasively in front of groups (viz. experience in teaching and seminars), etc. Moving from academia to non-academic industry can be difficult for philosophy PhDs--but clearly, it can have real upside, as my Philosophers in Industry Directory also suggests.

4. There is significant variance on the kinds of jobs that philosophy PhDs want: Yes, according to the ADPA's 10-year sample, a supermajority of those who have academic jobs desire and academic job. And yes, a slim majority of those who leave academia have a strong preference for an academic job, as well. Still, a significant proportion of PhDs in the sample report being less invested in academia, either wanting non-academic work or reporting no strong preference either way.

5. Most PhDs reported that their programs were neither supportive nor unsupportive of non-academic employment, and a significant proportion reported that their programs were very unsupportive. Further, qualitative responses suggest that PhD students may fear even disclosing an interest in pursuing a non-academic career -- and in general (with a few exceptions), it doesn't seem that many departments do very much to help their PhDs pursue non-academic jobs.

6. Philosophical skills (and, to a lesser extent, philosophical knowledge) seem to be job-relevant outside of academia: the kinds of skills philosophers cultivate (reading, writing, thinking, speaking, logic, creative problem solving) are widely reported by those outside of academia as directly relevant to their careers. And over 50% of those who reported said that philosophical material is job-relevant too (such as knowledge of ethics, etc.).

Finally, here's one more hot-take, to echo some points I made a few weeks ago:

7. It probably behooves academic philosophy (and grad programs) to do far more to support students seeking non-academic work. Placing students into good careers not only reflects well on the discipline (including to administrators, parents, prospective students, taxpayers, etc.). It may also be conducive to philosophy-supporting philanthropy. Humanities departments (including philosophy departments) are being closed and or otherwise threatened left and right--and like it or not, for better or worse, we live in a time when public and philanthropic support for academic disciplines are increasingly crucial. Many other academic disciplines realized this long ago, and have cultivated industry ties in ways that help their disciplines and departments thrive. The more that philosophers thrive outside outside of academia, the more likely (it seems to me) the philosophy will survive and thrive in academia. Or so it seems to me.

But these are just my hot takes. What are yours? 

Grappling with impostor syndrome?

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

I'm around midway through my PhD, and have been struggling more than I normally do with imposter syndrome. It's put a real damper on my ability to work. What's the point if I'm not going to do work that others would want to read? And why should I risk revealing how little I know?

I've also been pretty convinced by the cognitive scientist Barbara Sarnecka's analysis of imposter syndrome - found in her book, the Writing Workshop - not as the result of something going wrong on the side of the individual, but as the result of something going wrong in the environment. Those struggling with imposter syndrome aren't usually making bad inferences about their own abilities from good data, but good inferences from bad data. We overestimate the success of others, and so underestimate our own, because we're only ever told the success stories.

I'm wondering if anyone has advice on combatting this kind of bad data. I'm especially interested in what I, as a graduate student, can do about it.

I'm sorry to hear that this reader is struggling, but I'm glad they asked this question, as it's an important issue that I expect a lot of grad students and early career philosophers struggle with. We've talked about impostor syndrome a few times before on the blog, and in fact there were many times early in my career when I struggled with impostor syndrome myself--so I know how hard it can be. So, let me offer a few brief comments that I hope the OP may find helpful before opening things up for comments.

What are standards of co-authorship?

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

What are the standards of honest co-authorship in philosophy? I have recently been asking around to fellow grad students, and in one case, one person reported drafting the entire paper by themselves, receiving feedback by their supervisors, and being asked to add their names as co-authors. In another case, the student recounted a similar story, except this time they acknowledged that the more senior person's ideas were what made the paper worth submitting to a journal in the first place, even though the student wrote the draft entirely by themselves. In a third case, the student researched and wrote all but the introductory/'background' sections of the paper, but the paper is still billed as an even co-authorship. Are these students being exploited, or is this normal?

These are excellent questions. Given that co-authorship is relatively uncommon in philosophy (but seemingly increasing!), I'm hoping we can have a good discussion. One reader submitted the following response:

I work on authorship, and I have co-authored with a number of people, junior, senior, and peers. This is a complex set of questions you ask. Further, one cannot reliably know what happened if you just hear one person's story. The other co-authors might see things very differently. If the various students you mention feel exploited, then they need to talk with an ethics person on campus, that is, someone involved in research integrity. At many universities there is usually a committee. But they can initially talk with a member of such a committee.

I think this follow-up is broadly correct: co-authorship is complex, and as a spouse of someone who works in a STEM field, I've experienced many of these complexities second-hand. My sense is that in science, there doesn't seem to be any exact standard of how to settle co-authorship (including the order of co-authors listed). Instead, there appear to be some general rules of thumb that co-authors often broadly negotiate these matters according to, but which are not always respected (and indeed, in some cases--all too many cases, in fact--abused). Allow me to explain, and then open things up for discussion.

How strongly do philosophy grad students want an academic career?

On Twitter, our own Helen De Cruz writes:

In how far do philosophy grad students overwhelmingly want an academic career? Is this their absolute top preference, or is it bc they can't imagine doing anything else, or do they think they should want an academic job so as not to disappoint their advisors?

These are really good (and important) questions. What proportion of grad students are so single-mindedly focused on an academic career? How many grad students are unsure what they want, or whose minds change over time? In our recent thread on grad program support for non-academic careers, there was some debate about the last of these questions. Derek Bowman wrote:

If students have realized they want to pursue another career, why would they pursue it through a philosophy PhD program, instead of pursuing that career more directly?

However, Chris Stephens responded:

It sounds like your experience is different from mine. In my experience, many PhD students discover along the way that they don't want to pursue an academic career. That's why the surprise.

I'm really curious to hear from all of the philosophy grad students and recent PhDs out there (or even people who got their grad degrees a while ago). How strongly do you/did you desire an academic career? Did your mind (or strength of preferences) change over time? If so, when? Early in grad school? Later on? Why?

How the academic job market looks: several sets of comparisons

I know a lot of people have been interested in how this year's job market would compare to last year's, given how uniquely horrific things were due to COVID last time around. So, now that job ads have been posted for next year for about two months (job ads usually begin in early August), how do things look so far? Here are a few interesting comparisons (August 1st-September 30th):

Total Job Ads on PhilJobs

• 2021: 133 ads
• 2020: 65 
• 2019: 146 
• 2018: 156 
• 2017: 135
• 2016: 155
• 2015: 136

The good news, then, is that there are more than twice as many job ads this year as last year, and that this year's job market is fairly close to how things were pre-COVID. The bad news is that, compared to before COVID, this year's market so is still on the lower end of the spectrum. One other potential positive thing I've noticed this year, however, is that there seem to be more ads than usual that advertise more than one job (for example, a few ads advertise 2-4 jobs apiece!). I don't have time to compile data on this right now, but is worth bearing in mind.

What about 'tenure-track (or similar)' job ads? Here again are some comparisons:

'Tenure track or similar' ads on Philjobs

• 2021: 75 ads
• 2020: 22 (!)
• 2019: 80
• 2018: 106
• 2017: 83
• 2016: 95
• 2015: 88

Which grad programs have good alt-ac support?

On Twitter, our own Helen De Cruz (St. Louis University) writes:

How do different grad schools compare in their placement of people into alt-ac careers? I suspect (but have no data) that if you actively help people (e.g., with making resume and mock interview) you'll place more successfully in alt-ac jobs but we have no data.

Good question. Does anyone know? My memory is a bit hazy here, but I seem to recall hearing that at least a few grad programs in philosophy do have decent support systems for pursuing alt-ac (or non-academic) careers. If anyone has any insights, I'd love to hear them in the comments section!

Grad program support for alt-ac careers?

On Twitter, our own Helen De Cruz asks:

[When it comes to applicants deciding between grad programs,] how important should support for alt-ac careers be? Given that even the best placing schools will have grad students who will never be able to have a career as an academic, does this mean that all grad programs should at least do something toward alt-ac training/placement?

These are excellent questions. There has been some debate lately about whether grad programs should take greater steps to aid students in Alt-Ac placement. Some (such as myself) think that the answer is: obviously yes. Insofar as only something like 50% of philosophy PhD students ever finish their degrees, and of those who do only something like 32 to 35% get permanent academic posts within 5 years of graduation, this means that a high proportion of philosophy graduate students could really use support in finding non-academic work. On the other hand, there are those who think this isn't really the job of faculty in philosophy PhD programs, as these programs are said to exist primarily to train students for academic jobs. From my perspective, this latter line of argument amounts to a bare appeal to tradition. Yes, philosophy programs have existed primarily to prepare students for academic jobs--but I think there is no good reason for things to stay this way. Let me explain.

(Better addressing) why grad students drop out?

On Twitter, our own Helen De Cruz (St. Louis University) asks:

What are the main factors that cause grad students to drop out of programs, and how can these be mitigated? How can programs better support e.g., mental health, wellbeing and other outcomes?

These are both excellent and important questions. My sense is that many grad programs could probably do a lot more to better support struggling grad students, but that these issues are often just not talked about openly. In my experience, a lot of graduate students end up suffering in relative silence, not knowing what to do or who to turn to--and, perhaps in part because they are afraid to speak out, grad programs may not know what they could be doing to help.

Finally, of course, there may in some cases be simply a lack of will. Some grad faculty might not think it is their responsibility to help grad students through personal crises that affect their academic performance and ability to finish the program. Although I strongly disagree with this, it is worth thinking about what might be done to incentivize a more proactive and helpful approach in grad programs--such as, perhaps, the APA (or AAUP?) developing some kind of 'best practices' document or instituting some of kind requirement for programs to be transparent about their dropout rates in order to remain in good standing with the organization (which, insofar as it could reflect poorly on the program, particularly to prospective students, might incentivize programs to do better).

Anyway, I'm not sure--but I think these are very important questions, given how much is at stake in the lives of grad students. So, then, how would you answer Helen's questions? What are the main factors that lead grad students to drop out, and what should programs do better?

PhilPapers publication metrics?

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

I am wondering what - if anything - is the use of one's "Publication metrics" on PhilPeople. For those who aren't aware of this feature, PhilPeople provides users with their percentile rankings (Q1, Q2, Q3, top 5%, top 1%, etc.) for their publications, paper downloads, and citations, both overall and in specific subject areas. The rankings are relative to "pro" users, which are users with either a PhD in Philosophy or at least one publication in one of the "Most Popular" journals according to PhilPapers. Using this feature, you might learn that you are in the top 1% of downloads in say, Social Epistemology in the past five years, or that you are in the 90% percentile for publication volume in Value Theory.

I find this feature kind of neat. However, I can't imagine a situation where I would actually tell anyone about my publication metrics - if I did, I am sure it would be seen as being in bad taste. But at the same time, it seems like these metrics would be be useful information for search committees or for tenure and promotion cases: it's a decent way of showing whether or not people are actually engaging with your work, and how engagement with your research compares with others working in a similar area. Publication Metrics on PhilPeople is a bit like one's h-index and citations on Google Scholar, which I have heard of people mentioning for T&P, but PhilPeople has the advantage of being specific to the discipline, or even the sub-discipline. One issue might be that - unlike Google scholar citations and h-index - these metrics aren't public: as far as I can tell, one can only see one's own metrics, not those of others. I'm not sure why PhilPeople doesn't make them public, but doing so would mean that they're worth more than simple navel-gazing.

This is an interesting query. It does seem like these kinds of statistics might be useful in some regards when it comes to hiring or tenure and promotion. After all, the statistics do in essence 'compare you' to other specialists, indicating how much you publish in your field and how interested other people are in reading your work. On the other hand, I wonder how useful hiring or T&P committees might find this kind of information.

In any case, because I'm about as unsure as the OP on all of this, I'll open discussion to all of you: what do you think? Is this kind of PhilPapers information useful in any way above and beyond 'navel-gazing'? If so, how? Do you know of cases where it has been used (e.g. in hiring, etc.)? Should PhilPapers make the information public?

Moving/relocation tips for academics?

On Twitter, Alex Bryant (PhD student, McMaster) writes:

Early career academics: Presumably you have developed a kind of expertise related to moving (including problems common to grad students/academics, like moving books). What have you learned, what do you suggest, and what mistakes could you help others avoid?

Related: One way long-tenured senior people might be out of touch with the state of the profession is just how much of an impact frequent moves has on people who have to move from contract to contract, postdoc to postdoc, rather than picking up lifelong job out of school.

This is a good question that we've never discussed before, as in my experience moving between jobs can indeed have a serious impact on an academic's ability to get work done. The couple of times that I moved (first to UBC, then to Tampa), the summer that I moved was mostly a 'wash' where I wasn't able to get much research done. My experience was that there are just so many things to figure out and daily stressors having to do with it that it can be hard to focus.

Anyway, do any readers have any tips? Also, it might be worth hearing from readers on whether (and how), in their experience, senior academics may be out of touch here.

Dealing with undercitation in philosophy? (Guest-post by Ten-Herng Lai)

Ten-Herng Lai (Australian National University) writes in:

I understand that pretty much the same issue was discussed here around 2015, but I think it is important that we bring it up again. I believe that literature review and under-citation is a problem in academic philosophy. Here I can only provide some personal experience as a journal reviewer. It may be that I’m not being a very good reviewer. I’m open to this possibility, and if so, please simply point it out.

I am a very junior scholar, but was fortunate enough to publish a paper in a decent journal on an issue that proved to be quite topical. So I get these invitations to review, several of them. Last time I counted, there are at least 20+ papers published in print or online first on this topic since 2019. A good portion of papers I reviewed cites almost none of them, as if the issue was uncharted territory. Some papers have very good insight, but fail to engage with the literature at all. Some papers just reinvent the wheel. Occasionally there are some papers that make good proposals but would be much better if taken certain points others have made into consideration.

Here’s what I did as a reviewer. I would encourage them to at least say “Archer (2020) Bard (2018) Cleric (2019) Druid (Online First) have all suggested certain solutions, but mine is different and covers an ignored but important point.” Better is that they say why their point is better, or at least distinguish their own point from those made by others. Sometimes I suggest that they can simply cite and rephrase a “respond to objection” someone else already made, instead of writing a separate response to some objection that has already been responded to like 5 or 6 times in different papers. Some more particular points may be that the author(s)’s solution can be combined with someone else’s solution to become even better.

I hope what I did as a reviewer helped to improve the quality of those papers, even if they were not accepted in those particular journals. I sincerely believe that doing some literature review and actually engaging with some previous papers enhances the quality of papers. (And I admit sometimes I see some papers published that fail to do so, and are of very bad quality, e.g., proposing points that have been utterly knocked down by previous publications. I don’t know how they went past the reviewers in those journals...) I also believe that there seems to be some sort of disrespect going on when not engaging in previous publications enough. Probably it’s some sort of arrogance, believing that one has “discovered” something new, just like (though obviously less serious than) how Columbus “discovered” America and how Captain Cook “discovered” Australia.

I agree that this is a problem, and have heard other people say similar things. I also agree think that what Lai did here as a reviewer is right. But this raises an obvious question: what else can/should be done to address under-citation in philosophy? I have two ideas, and am curious what other readers think, including whether readers have other suggestions, as well.

How to list affiliation in a non-university job?

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

First, for some context, I recently accepted a job teaching philosophy (along with a few other subjects in the humanities) in a private high school.

Lately I've been considering submitting a few papers I've been working on to journals and conferences. In the process, however, I've been confronted with the question of what to list as my affiliation. Since finishing grad school, I've mostly been using "no affiliation" or "independent philosopher" for this kind of thing. Continuing to use that wouldn't exactly seem accurate now, since I'm now employed at a school. The only apparent alternative, I suppose, is using my new high school as an affiliation--but something about that makes me uneasy, too. Perhaps it's simply the fact that I've never seen anyone do this; to the extent that I can remember philosophers' listed affiliations, they've always been a college or university. Part of me wonders whether the very meaning that most people give to "affiliation" in this context restricts the word to institutions of higher education, such that listing a high school as one's affiliation would be considered a bit like listing, say, Costco (assuming one worked there), or a given elementary school, etc.

If I'm to be honest with myself, I suppose I also sense that there might be a certain stigma to listing a high school as one's affiliation--that others might sense that one isn't a "real" philosopher, that one's work isn't to be taken as seriously, etc. Perhaps that's what's ultimately making me feel uneasy (though arguably I shouldn't be bothered by others' thoughts in this way).

What I wanted to ask, then, was whether anyone has any thoughts on what I should list as my affiliation going forward.

This is an interesting question. My general sense (though it could be wrong) is that the prevailing convention is to list oneself as an 'independent scholar' in cases like this. But, even assuming this is right, whether this is a good convention is another story entirely--as the convention seems to presuppose that an affiliation is only worth listing in a journal if it is a university. Personally, I'd prefer to see 'non-traditional' affiliations (such as high schools, etc.) actually listed in cases like these--as I think it would be very interesting to know where such scholars work! But, on the other hand, I wonder whether (as the OP notes) it might work to the author's disadvantage. First, might journal editors discriminate against authors like the OP? Second, would journal readers? For example, would Einstein's 1905 paper on special relativity have gotten the attention it did if Einstein listed 'Swiss Patent Office' as his affiliation? Or would many readers have written it off as a work of an amateur? 

What do readers think? It might be great to hear, in particular, from journal editors and independent scholars. What is the prevailing convention here? Would it hurt a scholar like the OP to list their actual (e.g. high school) affiliation rather than merely listing themselves as an independent scholar?