The Philosophers' Cocoon

Reflections on my upcoming 40th birthday, hitting targets, and our relevance in the profession

In less than a month, I will be 40 years old. 

In my early 30s, I took away my date of birth from social media and from my CV.

The reason behind this was that I worried about being regarded as "past my prime", especially for hiring committees. It took me a while to get funding for my PhD and then it took me a while to get a second PhD, as well as several postdoc positions. I also had two children. My partner was the primary caregiver for both through their early years, so I only took a few months off for each birth. Still, this all takes time--and time goes on inexorably. 

In the past I could not help thinking, "By age 40, I should..."

• Have a permanent job, check. Still, what is permanent these days? 
• Bought house, nope. Too expensive. 
• Published a paper in one of the top-3 philosophy journals, nope. (I should start writing in a different way and actually submit to these things, so it doesn't seem to be that big a priority). Etc. 

We use age as a measuring-rod, a series of checkpoints that we should have reached. Seeing younger people getting all sorts of accolades and accomplishments fills us with gladness for them, but also amps up our insecurity, as if we're missing the targets we need to hit. A bit like looking at the ultrasound of a gestating fetus, there are these set checkpoints that we evaluate ourselves by. By age x I surely should have accomplished y. Otherwise, there's a problem.

Should journals discourage repeat reviews?

I recently reviewed a paper for a journal, and was struck by a check-box in the online reviewer form that I recall encountering before. The check box asked something like, "Would you be willing to have your review forwarded to another journal if the manuscript is submitted elsewhere?" This in turn got me thinking about a broader phenomenon: reviewers reviewing the same manuscript at different journals. I've encountered this phenomenon on social media before, the typical case being a reviewer saying something like, "I rejected this paper at one journal. Then I got asked to review it again at a new journal, and because the author didn't seem to revise it in light of my feedback at the first journal, I just attached my first review advocating rejection at the second journal."

Another kind of attrition rate

In my recent post addressing a reader's query on how to choose between PhD programs, I suggested the reader should focus less on the reputation of a program or particular advisor and instead focus more on programs' attrition rate (i.e. how many people don't finish the program) and job-placement rate. The other day, however, an anonymous comment inadvertently drew my attention to another salient issue that in my experience is rarely discussed: what I will (for lack of better words) call post-PhD attrition rates. Allow me to explain what I mean, and why I think it may be good as a new disciplinary norm to expect programs to track and make them clear on their placement webpages.

JHP opportunities for early-career scholars

I've been asked to post the following set of announcements by The Journal of the History of Philosophy, which includes a number of opportunities (travel grants, fellowships, and one award) for early-career philosophers:

JHP ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Master Classes in the History of Philosophy

Sponsored by The Journal of the History of Philosophy

Mindful of the challenges facing young scholars working in the history of philosophy, the Board of Directors of the Journal of the History of Philosophy has established a program of Master Classes in the History of Philosophy. The central idea of the program is that a senior scholar who works primarily in some area of the history of philosophy would undertake to direct an intensive week of master classes for the benefit of a small group of recent Ph.D.’s whose main research and teaching are in the relevant area. Normally, the classes will focus on one or more texts that are typically not part of material that the participants would have studied as graduate students. The goal of the program is the enhancement of the expertise and understanding of the young scholars in their area of specialization.

Mid-career reflections - part 8: on fear in the discipline

When I started the Cocoon a little over six years, I didn't have many hopes for it. I was just a struggling early-career scholar with few friends or professional contacts in the discipline (due, admittedly, to some bad choices I made early on). I started the Cocoon not because I expected anyone to read it, but simply because I was sick of feeling isolated and alone in a discipline that seemed to me to incentivize those things. My only hope in starting the blog was that I might find a few similarly-minded others: people like me who were sick of feeling alone, and who wanted to help each other make their path through the discipline just a little bit better.

In some ways (many ways), the Cocoon succeeded beyond my wildest hopes. It seems to be widely read, at times has had a good stable of contributors, has been a wonderful way to get to know other people (and helped me feel far less isolated), and I've often heard people say complimentary things about it (though maybe they're just being nice). However, there's one major thing about the Cocoon that has been a persistent disappointment, at least for me--and that is how few early-career people have joined as contributors. I will be frank: since day 1, I've always hoped the Cocoon would really bloom--that early-career people would come out of the woodwork left and right to congregate here to post regularly and speak their minds: sharing their work, discussing their career struggles, and so on. Yet, while there are many commenters--as well as people who have (mostly anonymously) shared professional questions and career struggles in our "how can we help you?" series--the blog has consistently had few official contributors...and these days it is basically just me and sometimes Helen.

I've often wondered why so few early-career people blog. It could of course be anything: maybe people think they have better things to do (like, you know, research and teaching). However, I've asked people about this on occasion, and every time I've done so the dominant answer seems to be very different: fear. Fear of what search committees might think. Fear of what other philosophers might think. And so on (see the comments section above). If this is the truth--and it appears to be--I think it is just terrible. It is the reason why I began the Cocoon in the first place: because I was sick of living alone and in fear. I wanted a better profession than that. And yet--or so it seems--the fear is still there. Why? And how should we grapple with it?

Reader query on reading vs. writing

In the comments section of our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, Amanda writes:

I guess this might help me in terms of understanding my own attitude toward the profession. I am curious whether most philosophers like writing or reading philosophy more? Also, I am curious whether most philosophers read things they like, or mainly read for the purposes of their own research. Either way, what percentage of the philosophy that you read do find intellectually fulfilling? 

I too am curious to hear people's answers. Here are mine...

A plea for more types of publications

Avram Hiller has a good piece over at Daily Nous (one I mostly agree with!) suggesting that philosophy journals should be more like science journals, which publish very short (1,500 word) "letters" along with full-length articles. Hiller's basic ideas are that many philosophy articles don't need to be as long as they do, and that more space for shorter pieces might increase philosophical discussion and inclusivity, make things easier on authors, editors, and readers, and increase acceptance rates.

I'm not sure about a few of these things--as I expect journals might start to be flooded with short pieces--but still, I'm generally sympathetic with Hiller's proposal. As I've mentioned before, I think the fairly standard policy of journals not considering "replies" to articles in other journals is a pretty big barrier to philosophical discussion. If more journals had a "letters" section, involving both short original pieces as well as replies, I suspect it would benefit the profession in some of the ways Hiller suggests.

However, I'd also like to make a converse plea I've made before: a plea for journals to consider longer pieces as well. In brief, I think good philosophy comes in all shapes and sizes. Some arguments can be made in 1,500 words. Some arguments can be made in 6,000 words. Others can be made in 10,000 words. Others still can only be made in 15,000 words. Still others require 20,000 words. And some--book length arguments--require 100K+ words.

Changing peer-review: as good a time as any?

I wrote last week about how I've found it better to let bitterness and resentment about the profession go. While I didn't claim that my experiences generalize or suggest that there aren't things about the profession that might rightly make people bitter, I hope at least some of you found the post helpful. All that being said, there are still some things about the profession that frustrate many of us--and as I mentioned in that post, I think we should discuss and try to improve things in the profession. So, in today's post, I'm going to discuss some concerns I've mentioned before about our current processes of peer-review, and how our system might be improved.

I'd like to begin by considering how people feel about our system of peer-review. Here is my general sense:

Editors don't seem to like it: As J. David Velleman (editor of Philosophers' Imprint) wrote at Daily Nous a while back, journals are overwhelmed with papers. The number of papers journals receive is making it progressively more difficult to find enough willing referees, give papers the attention they are due, and so on. Velleman has not been shy about his concerns, as I recall him sharing similar concerns on a number of occasions. And, in my experience, other editors seem to feel similarly. For example, when I recently inquired with an editor about a paper I submitted that had been under review a fairly long while, the editor mentioned that the peer-review system is "broken." I very much appreciated the editor's candor--not to mention the editor's timely and conscientious resolution to my inquiry--but I think it just goes to show: editors seem to like our current system about as much as the rest of us. Which brings me to...

Referees don't seem to like it: I can't even begin to count the number of times I've heard referees complain about our current peer-review system. It isn't that referees despise reviewing per se. On the contrary, I've heard some people say they think it is a valuable and important service to the profession. No, the concerns I've heard referees voice--many times in the comments section of this very blog--are typically about the kinds of papers they receive: papers that in their judgment are nowhere near publishable, and should have been desk-rejected. Among other things, I've heard referees often complain about egregious failures to engage in relevant literature--something I continually encounter as a referee: papers saying or implying things like "No one has argued X" when a simple philpapers search on that topic reveals multiple listings of people arguing X on the very first page.

Authors really don't like it: This much should go without saying. I want to be clear, though. Like many people, I think, I have had some very good experiences in the peer-review process: timely decisions, with really helpful referee reports, and so on. The problem, from an author's perspective, is not that the process never goes well. The problem is that there are many things that often don't go well. Waiting many months to get a verdict on a paper can be excruciating--especially if one is on the job-market or coming up for tenure. Having to bug editors about papers that are well-past their reviewer deadlines is nerve-wracking, as one may worry that bugging the editor (and, by extension, reviewer) might elicit a negative result. Then there are worries about being "scooped", as in cases when one worked for months or years on a paper, finished it years ago and yet, while it is still under review, one sees other people publish similar arguments (a dispiriting and anxiety-producing experience, to be sure). Then there is the phenomenon of "Google reviewing", which occurs when one submits a paper for anonymized review only to suspiciously find one's website googled with the paper title a few days later (I've heard many people report this). Finally, while there are some very good reviewers, there are also reviewers who don't do a good job--reviewers who take months on a paper only to give you five dismissive (and in some cases, needlessly inflammatory) sentences, as well as reviewers who seem to have read totally different papers--not to mention the fact that some of the most influential papers in the field appear to have been systematically rejected. 

A philpapers reply journal?

I've mentioned a few times about how journal restrictions on replies seem to me an unfortunate barrier to philosophical discussion, and how it might be cool for there to be a replies-only journal. Anyway, a few days ago David Bourget asked on philpeople whether the PhilPapers Foundation should create a journal of just that sort. Would you like to see such a journal? If so, I'd suggest liking Bourget's post and letting him know!

Science magazine on choosing the kind of academic you want to be

A reader drew my attention today to this article at Science Magazine on the freedom to choose to be the kind of academic you want to be. Here's an excerpt:

A postdoc friend recently called me to discuss his career options. He didn’t want to run his own lab, he said. Instead, he wanted to become a research scientist, mainly working at the bench— like me. I sensed that his mind was already made up, but he needed validation about pursuing a path that is not generally thought of as a professional success. Our conversation got me thinking about my own decision to become a research scientist—and about other career choices I made that went against the norm.

Reader query on the worst aspect(s) of the job

In the comments section of our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, Anon writes (my emphasis):

Following up on the thread about impostor syndrome and the one on Daily Nous about the graduate student mental health crisis (which is probably a faculty crisis too) I think this might be a good time to focus some light on the following issue: What is the worst aspect of your job as a professional philosopher? Or if you are a graduate student or job seeker, what is the aspect of the job you look forward to least, and wish most to avoid. Basically what is the one thing in the profession that most drags you down, saps your will to work (or to live even), such that fixing this problem would result in the single largest improvement in your professional, and hence personal, well-being?

For me, I think it is the relentless speed-up of the job driven by the relentless demands for ever-increasing "production". It is bad enough when it comes from the mindless MBA-bots which run universities now, but the worst thing is that so many academics have now internalized this imperative and it guides their professional actions and expectations (even while they complain about it). I find this incredibly alienating, in the Marxian sense. The constant pressure, combined with the fact that I have to publish on what's fashionable, rather than what I think is worth working on (let alone interesting), has utterly drained my work of any value to me. This, in turn, is compounded by the need to publish quickly, so the work is necessarily half-assed, which in turn saps my self-respect since I am not even producing the best crap that I can (and I have to spend time engaging with work that is, it seems to me, similarly rushed and drained of value...). I feel that I am not a researcher but simply an academic "content-creator", whose job is just to generate a fancy version of click-bait. I often find myself day-dreaming that being an adjunct would be preferable; yes, I would have less time to write, but outside of class my time would be entirely my own.

I know not everyone feels the same way about the need to produce, and I am interested to see what other people consider the worst thing about their job, or the profession more generally.

I think this is a good query. If there are particular things that people find frustrating about working in the profession, it can be good to know what those things are--not only for commiseration, but for (hopefully) working to make things better. I may weigh in myself down in the comments section. For now, though, I think it might be good to just open the topic for discussion: What is the worst aspect of your job as a professional philosopher, and why? Let me also ask one further question: What do you think could/should be done to make that part of your job better?  

A 'replies-only' journal?

A while ago, I suggested that there may be an underappreciated barrier to philosophical engagement. The barrier is this: with a few exceptions (see e.g. JESP), most philosophy journals do not accept "replies" to articles in other journals. In practice, this means that, by and large, reply pieces can only be sent to one journal. My sense is that this is a real deterrent to philosophical discussion. Although I published two reply articles early in my career, I've largely given up on writing them. Why spend time writing a piece you can only send to one journal?

This potential barrier to philosophical dialogue concerns me given how rare engagement with published articles seems to be. According to this study:

• More than 90% of published humanities papers have received no citations two years after publication.
• About 82% have never been cited five years after publication.

Kieran Healy's research on citation rates indicates philosophy is similar ("on the average hardly anyone is getting cited"). I think this is unfortunate. While I've heard some people say most published philosophy isn't worth engaging with, I think this is terribly cynical, overly dismissive of the hard work of our colleagues, and mostly serves to uphold hierarchies (viz. engagement with Big Names, ignoring No-Names). Further, the more I read, the more I think there are a lot of people doing interesting work--work that, unfortunately, given the incentives in place, just isn't being engaged with.

I've long wondered what the profession might do to incentivize greater engagement with people's work. One obvious possibility would be for existing journals to be more open to replies to articles in other journals. However, I do not see that happening any time soon. Which got me thinking about one other possibility: a replies-only philosophy journal that might serve as a central forum for engagement with other articles in the literature. While such a journal would, obviously, only increase the number of places one could submit replies to by one, I cannot help but wonder whether--with the right kinds of editorial standards and review process--such a journal might substantially incentivize greater philosophical engagement.

What do you all think: would such a journal be a good idea? If so, that brings me to my next question: what exactly are the steps one must take to create such a journal? I'm sure it would be a fairly massive undertaking (logistically speaking)--and I'm far from sure whether it's something I would ever sensibly pursue myself--but still, I'd like to learn about what it might involve. What does it take to get a new journal started? Anyone have any experience or tips they're willing to share?

Should journals use 'outside reviewers'?

Daily Nous recently ran a post on whether journals favor affiliated authors. In the comments section, Neil Levy wrote:

Note that there is a minimally pernicious explanation that may account for some bias: the bias may be toward topics or approaches (which it is an editor’s prerogative to favor) rather than people or institutions.

This got me thinking about something else I've worried about for a while: self-selection effects in the peer-review system. Here's my worry. From my experience as a reviewer, the selection of peer-reviewers tends to work something like this:

1. A paper is submitted on topic X.
2. The editors of the journal then seek out reviewers who specialize on topic X.
3. The editors thus rely on judgments of people steeped in topic X to judge new papers on X.

So, for example, in my case, I receive a good number of requests to review papers in the following areas: nonideal justice, transformative experience, experimental philosophy, and free will--all areas I've published in. I am almost never asked to review a paper outside of these areas. Why? Because I don't specialize in the areas in question. But is this a good rationale? It might seem like it. Specialists are, it seems, the most qualified people to evaluate papers in their area. Alas, I think there's an underappreciated danger here: the danger of self-selection bias. Allow me to explain.

Guest-post on perceptions about different types of jobs

The following is an invited guest-post composed by Sam Duncan (Tidewater Community College):

Whether we admit it or not, we philosophers think a lot about how other philosophers view us and our academic positions. In fact, many of us often weigh this more than we should other considerations like the day to day reality of jobs and their larger impact on the world.  I worked as an adjunct and as a lecturer on a year to year appointment for many years and one of the thoughts that dogged me was that my professors and colleagues from grad school thought of me a failure. When I finally landed a full-time gig at a community college I couldn’t shake that thought that even though I liked my job, other members of the profession would view me as a failure. The reactions of some of my former professors only reinforced this. I remember writing one to tell her about the job and her reaction was basically “Well you deserve a better job but it’s a step up.”

The thing is, it’s actually a really good job by almost any objective measure. The pay is good, and my workload and stress levels are much lower than my friends working in research focused jobs. I also have a lot of autonomy in the way I do my job. In fact, not only does administration not meddle in how I do my job but they’ve been extremely supportive of my own ideas and responsive to the few concerns I’ve had as a faculty member. For instance, I wanted to offer a bioethics course here and a number of deans and other administrators did a lot of work to help me through the process and to drum up interest in the course once it was offered. This is a huge contrast to the relationship between the administration and faculty at the research focused school where I worked as a lecturer, which could only be described as acrimonious if not poisonous. And while I don’t have to do much research to keep my job, the college is extremely supportive of research. I get a pretty good travel budget and my dean is overjoyed when I present papers at conferences. So I can do research if and when I feel like it, but there’s none of the publish only to publish pressure that many faculty members feel at research focused institutions. To me at least that seems ideal. Why then would my former professors and others respond in a tone of commiseration? And why would I care?

Poll: would you still choose to pursue a philosophy PhD?

In light of the discussion in the comments section of our recent query by an undergraduate considering grad programs in philosophy, I thought it might be interesting to run an informal poll. Specifically, I'm curious how many of our readers who entered PhD programs in philosophy would make the same choice if they could go back in time and make the decision again.

Obviously, this is an unscientific poll and there might be significant self-selection effects, so I encourage readers (particularly those considering grad school in philosophy) to take poll results with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, I thought it might be interesting to gauge our readers' thoughts. I respectfully ask readers to answer the poll honestly, and to fill it out only once. The poll is open to those and only those who entered a PhD program in philosophy, regardless of whether they finished their program. Finally, if you would like to briefly share why you answered the poll the way you did in the comments section (in a manner consistent with the blog's Mission), please do! 

If you pursued a PhD in philosophy, would you do it again?

Definitely

 

Probably

 

Unsure

 

Probably Not

 

Definitely Not

 

 

pollcode.com free polls

Undergraduate query on grad school

In the comments of our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Jonathan Lauret writes:

...I'm an undergraduate student majoring in philosophy, and I'm entering into the process of looking for what graduate schools to apply to.

I just today have been scanning through the internet for information on graduate school situations involving philosophy, and the tone is almost always very disheartening and depressing due to a number of given reasons. Most posts or blogs wrote about really rough conditions involving the application/hiring process, the amount of experience required for a very punishing and unrewarding job (typically), and the sheer rarity of any resulting enjoyable professorial position. 
I don't know what exactly I'm looking for in regards to the particular positions out there for graduates in philosophy. I do know that I love the discipline, that I hold it in value not due to some sort of desire to be famous or great or sage-like, but to get a better grasp or understanding of the world I live in. I feel as though teaching and talking to students/other people who have their own ideas and feelings on these things will bring me what I'm looking for in a profession.

I guess the question that comes from all this may be, where do these sorts of feelings fit into the grand scheme of going into graduate school and later entering the academic job market?

I think this is a great query, in part because we might be able to help Jonathan, but also because this is a kind of inquiry I expect a lot of get fairly often from undergraduates (I know I do). Indeed, I'm hoping a lot of you chime in, as perhaps this thread can function as an online compendium of different people's responses to these kinds of questions--one we might direct our undergraduates to in the future to hear different perspectives on the issue!

How another discipline mentors its grad students

Earlier this evening, I accompanied my spouse, a PhD candidate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, to the reception at her discipline's major regional conference (akin to our Eastern APA). As I was chatting with her advisor, he mentioned the previous day at the conference. I was a bit surprised, as my spouse told me the conference began today. So, I asked him, "Wait, how many days is this conference?" He told me the conference was three days long, beginning today--but that there were also two pre-conference days. I'd assumed that the pre-conference days were probably special workshops (i.e. invited mini-conferences on hot topics), of the sort common in philosophy these days. Still, I was curious, so I asked him what was the deal with the two pre-conference days. He said, "Oh, those are the pre-doc and post-doc consortium days?" Because I had no idea what that meant, I told him, "I have no idea what that means." That's when he told me.

Apparently, the first day of the annual pre-conference (the pre-doc consortium) is an entire day of workshops for undergraduates and Masters students considering applying to PhD programs. The discipline's organization (i.e. their "APA") arranges for professors from all different kinds of programs around the country to hold seminars on applying to programs, what to expect if you get in a PhD program, how to succeed in PhD programs, what the facts are about academic and non-academic job markets (so that people know their job-prospects before applying to PhD programs), and so on. 

That's the first day. The second pre-conference day (the post-doc consortium) is an entire day of workshops for current PhD students and job-candidates, where professors from programs from around the country hold sessions on finding academic jobs, finding non-academic jobs (including networking), succeeding in research, developing teaching skills, and many other things too apparently.

Peer-review and sub-disciplinary silos

I'd like to share a vague worry I have about the effects that "sub-disciplinary silos" may have on the peer-review process and philosophy more generally. What is a sub-disciplinary silo? Very roughly: a group of specialists in a specific sub-area of philosophy who primarily read and review work in that area. Here's a personal illustration. I'm increasingly asked to review papers for journals. Because I've published in nonideal theory in political philosophy, as well as on transformative experience, I often get asked to review papers in precisely those areas. I don't often (and in some cases, ever) get asked to review papers outside of my sub-disciplinary specialties--say, in metaphysics, epistemology, or philosophy of language. Generally speaking, I suspect I am not unique in this respect. The peer-review process generally seems to something like this: a person sends a paper to a journal, the editors look for specialists in the area to review it, and decide whether to publish the piece on the basis of the specialists' recommendations.

On the surface, this looks all fine and good. Who is in a better position to evaluate a paper than a specialist in the area in which the paper is written? Alas, I have a concern. In the sciences, papers are tested against the world--against a mind-independent reality. Scientific papers make hypothesis, and then test whether those hypotheses are confirmed or disconfirmed by data. In philosophy, on the other hand, we test papers against each other, making a case to our readers that our premises are true or plausible. In which case it matters who one's readers are. If one's readers are a biased sample--a group of self-selected individuals united, say, by similar philosophical commitments--then even if people in that sample find one's premises true or plausible, that may not actually be good evidence that one's premises are true or plausible. And herein lies my worry: when papers are read and evaluated primarily by specialists in a given sub-discipline, it is possible that the very group in specialists in question may comprise this kind of biased sample.

I came to have this worry in part by some of my experiences at conferences, as well as in part by some experiences as a journal reviewer.

Reader query on presenting to a department on mental illness

A reader writes in:

I finished my Phd in 2015 and decided not to go into academia. While I don't at all currently regret that decision, now that I have recently been able to finally be completely free of depression for the first time since maybe I was a little kid, I am able to recognize that my decision not to go into academia was at least partly influenced by depression. In short: I had been taking zoloft since my 2nd year in grad school; my marriage fell apart during my 8th year, and I coped by smoking way too much weed; my doctor decided to take me off zoloft because she was worried about its interactions with weed; during my 9th year I completely lost interest in philosophy (similar to my experience prior to taking zoloft during my 2nd year) and was able to eke out the rest of the dissertation but called it quits with philosophy.

Anyways: I was recently chatting with a few of my old advisors back at [redacted]... We talked about how we think it's really a shame that depression just isn't discussed openly within the department, even though so many people have it. I thought that it might be a good idea for me to come back and give talk, sharing my own experiences with depression in grad school, talking about resources at [redacted], etc. He agreed, so I'll be giving the talk in November :) In the meantime, as I'm thinking about the content and structure of my talk, I was wondering if you have any thoughts for such a talk: What sorts of things might be good to include in a talk to a philosophy department whose students suffer from depression and at least some of the faculty are interested in helping and improving the environment of the department?

I think this is a great query, and would like to commend the reader, advisor, and department that took the initiative to organize this individual's upcoming presentation. I'm curious to hear what readers think. I myself feel fairly comfortable offering suggestions, as I have a good deal of experience with mental illness: I worked as an intern in an outpatient ward for a year, was co-director of a group home for the mentally ill for another year, and mental illness runs in my family, being more or less a constant in my life-experience since early childhood. Allow me to share some of my thoughts, then, before I open things up for comments...

Should journals rethink word-limits?

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

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

Reader submission: the perspective of a long-term non-TT faculty member

A few weeks ago, following Amanda's very nice suggestion here, I invited long-term non-TT faculty to share their perspectives on their jobs and the academy on the Cocoon. Here is the first submission I have received (if you would like to share your story, please just email me at marvan@ut.edu):

By Anonymous

I thought about writing a submission for the “Long Journeys” series on the Cocoon and then again when the “Real Philosophy Jobs” series came out but ultimately decided against it. When the invitation for a non-TT perspective appeared, I decided I would finally share my story and my observations. It includes a long journey and a real non-TT philosophy job at the end.  I am about to start my third year of a full-time, permanent teaching position in a philosophy department at a public university.  Prior to this, I accumulated many years of experience in the profession doing temporary jobs that are now becoming more of a norm rather than an exception.

Helping graduate students succeed: are better mentoring and admissions strategies needed?

I had dinner with an early-career philosopher friend the other evening, and at one point the conversation turned to a topic I have cared a great deal about ever since I was in graduate school: helping graduate students succeed. As readers may (or may not) know, I attended two different philosophy PhD programs: Syracuse in the late '90s, and then Arizona (where I transferred because four of our star faculty at Syracuse were simultaneously hired away by other programs). I have very fond memories of joining both programs. It was truly exciting--and more than a bit humbling--as a young person who loved philosophy to join programs with so many talented and brilliant people. I particularly remember the grad students in both programs. Basically everyone who entered the programs was smart as a whip, with a history of academic success. As a naive newcomer, I confess that I expected that most of the grad students I knew would succeed, get tenure-track jobs, and go on to have long careers in the academy.

Of course, and unfortunately, I was wrong. While I don't have the statistics in front of me, I seem to recall coming across a statistic several years ago that something like only 50% of philosophy PhD students ever finish the degree, let alone finish and get a tenure-track job. At any rate, even if this statistic is wrong, every graduate program I've ever visited or heard about has plenty of students who fit that description--students who hang around the program for 7-8 or even 10 years, only to fade from view, never finishing the degree. Moreover, at least in my own experience, it tended to be very surprising which students those would be. A few cases aside, I don't think anyone--neither I, nor the faculty or other students in the programs I joined--could forecast very well which new students would succeed and which wouldn't. For my part, some of the students I felt sure would succeed didn't, and some who I expected wouldn't succeed did. Indeed, from my perspective at least, some of the most brilliant grad students I knew didn't make it, whereas some of the "less talented" ones did. Why?

Katzav & Vaesen on peer-review in philosophy

Joel Katsaz and Krist Vaesen have an interesting new paper forthcoming in Philosophers' Imprint entitled, “Pluralism and Peer Review in Philosophy” (via Daily Nous). In brief, Katzaz and Vaesen argue on epistemic and moral grounds that, "journals should relax their standards of acceptance, as well as be less restrictive about whom is to decide what is admitted into the debate." As long-time readers of the Cocoon may recall, I'm very sympathetic with their overall position!

PhD graduates by AOS

In the comments section of my post on last year's job numbers by AOS, an enterprising commenter, 'Curious', writes:

I was curious so I spent a couple hours going through the AOSs of recent graduates (2012-17) from NYU, Princeton, Rutgers and Michigan. Here are the results:

Total: 194
Ethics - 39 (20%)
Epistemology - 28 (14%)
Metaphysics - 27 (14%)
Mind (inc. Action) - 25 (13%)
Language - 15 (8%)
Science - 13 (7%)
Political/Law - 13 (7%)
Ancient - 11 (6%) (NB. These are ALL from Princeton, so this is misleading)
Math/Logic - 9 (5%)
History (excl. Ancient) - 8 (4%)
Aesthetics - 5 (2%)

I interpret this as pretty bad news for budding epistemologists and metaphysicians, given the job numbers. Obviously more departments would have to be gone through to really get useful numbers. Princeton has a unusually large number of dissertations in Ancient (same for Rutgers in epistemology and Michigan in Law).

Another reader, 'Also Curious', then added:

I suspect - suspect - that the "relatively booming specialties" that you identify are areas of growth in "lesser" departments, that is, departments outside the top 20 (perhaps top 40) on Leiter's rankings.

Two decades ago, there was very little interest and training in applied ethics at elite (and even below that) schools. Bowling Green, for example, was noted as one of the best in the USA. That again is an area where there are great teaching "needs" at non-elite schools.

Because I too was curious, I quickly looked up Carolyn Dicey Jennings' 2016 update on her earlier job-market report, and found the following chart:

As you can see from the purple parts of the pie-charts (indicating graduates whose dissertations were in "core" areas), many departments appear to be graduating somewhere between 20-40% of their PhDs in core areas...when only something like 8% of available jobs appear to be in those areas.

One can also pretty plainly see some anecdotal support for Also Curious' hypothesis that lower-ranked departments may be graduating more people in "booming" areas of the job-market (i.e. value theory). Just looking at the chart, one can see that departments like Depaul, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Marquette, McMaster, Rochester, Sussex, Hawaii, and Macquerie are graduating comparatively larger proportions of PhDs in value theory than some more highly-ranked programs.

Although I don't have the time to look more closely, I'm sure an enterprising reader or two could use Jennings' data to better evaluate Curious' and Also Curious' hypotheses!

Where the jobs were(n't) in 2016: by AOS

Updated - June 14th: Figures now include August 2016 (percentages by AOS changed very little).

I haven't done this in several years, but I was curious how academic jobs were distributed by AOS this year and quickly went through the philjobs advertisements from August 1, 2016 - May 31st, 2017. Because I figured readers might be interested as well, I posted the numbers below along with a bit of commentary.

A few quick notes. First, when I encountered jobs with multiple AOS (e.g. metaphysics, moral philosophy), I counted each job as '.5' jobs in that area (or in the case of 3 AOS, '.33' jobs, etc.). Although I recognize this is a bit odd, it seems to me to make sense, as a job like that could go to someone in any of the listed AOSs, not just one particular AOS. Because I did this with all jobs, the numbers seem to me to accurately weight whether a job is in a particular AOS simpliciter, or whether it was also available to candidates in other AOS. Second, I only counted "entry-level" jobs, i.e. postdocs and Assistant Professor positions, not Associate or Professor level jobs. Third, while I tried to get the numbers right, this is just a "quick and dirty" tally. While I don't think there are any major errors, I wouldn't be surprised if made a minor mistake or two.

In any case, here are a few highlights, followed by some commentary and then details (viz. breakdowns within each AOS):

TOTAL jobs = 482

• Value theory = 176 jobs (36.5%)
• Open AOS: 117 jobs (24.2%)
• Science (including cog. sci) = 44 jobs (now 9.1%)
• History = 43 jobs (now 8.9%)
• Core (mind, language, metaphysics, epistemology, logic) = 39 jobs (now 8%)

TT jobs = 231

• Value Theory = 78 jobs (34%)
• Open: 39 jobs (17%)
• History: 30 jobs (13%)
• Core (mind, language, metaphysics, epistemology, logic) = 23 jobs (10%)
• Science (including cog. sci) = 18 jobs (7.8%)

Non-TT jobs = 251

• Value theory = 98 jobs (39%)
• Open = 78 jobs (31%)
• Science  (including cog. sci) = 23 jobs (10%)
• Core (mind, language, metaphysics, epistemology, logic) =16 jobs (6.4%)
• History = 15 jobs (6%)

New data on representation of women in philosophy journals

Isaac Wilhelm (Rutgers) has drawn my attention to a new paper  he has forthcoming in Philosophical Studies with Sherry Lynn Conklin (UC Santa Barbara) and Nicole Hassoun (SUNY Binghamton) on the representation of women authors in philosophy journals. The abstract:

This paper presents new data on the representation of women who publish in 25 top philosophy journals as ranked by the Philosophical Gourmet Report for the years 2004, 2014, and 2015. It also provides a new analysis of Schwitzgebel’s 1955–2015 journal data. The paper makes four points while providing an overview of the current state of women authors in philosophy. In all years and for all journals, the percentage of female authors was extremely low, in the range of 14–16%. The percentage of women authors is less than the percentage of women faculty in different ranks and at different kinds of institutions. In addition, there is great variation across individual journals, and the discrepancy between women authors and women faculty appears to be different in different subfields. Interestingly, journals which do not practice anonymous review seem to have a higher percentage of women authors than journals which practice double anonymous or triple anonymous review. This paper also argues that we need more data on academic publishing to better understand whether this can explain why there are so few full-time female faculty in philosophy, since full-time hiring and tenuring practices presumably depend on a candidate’s academic publishing.

Reader query on how reviewers review papers

In the comments section of our newest "how can we help you?" post, a reader 'NK' writes:

I think it would be helpful to hear from those who've done some refereeing about how they approach the task. For early-career people like me, that would help both with refereeing, which we're just starting to do, and with publication, since it would give some insight into what referees are thinking.

But I'm thinking it would be especially helpful if the focus were on the kinds of things you ask yourself about papers you review, the kinds of things you remind yourself to do when reviewing, and so on. (For example, how do you figure out whether the fact that *you* disagree with something an author says constitutes a [perhaps defeasible] reason to reject?)

This is a really great query. When I was first struggling to learn how to publish, I felt like I had no clue what reviewers were looking for--and I suspect a lot of early-career people are in a similar boat. So, then, when you're reviewing for journals:

1. How do you approach your task?
2. What do you look for in a paper (viz. making a recommendation, such as "accept" or "reject")?
3. How do you figure out whether something you "disagree" with is a reason to reject?

Reader query on preventing 'google reviewing'

In the comments section of our newest "How can we help you?" post, a reader writes:

I'm wondering if anyone can give advice on how to hide your paper from Googling by referees. I have recently noticed that my website gets a huge spike in traffic right after I submit a paper--even to a triple-blind journal. (Of course, at any journal, the googler may just be the editor, which is not as bad as it being the referees.) Plus, there's all this independent testimony that it's a common practice.

Anyway, I think the problem is very acute for those of us on the market (as I will be in the fall). Think of all the places a job candidate will have a paper's info:(1) under a research tab on the website, (2) in an "Under Review" section on one's CV, which is on one's website, (3) in a research statement or dissertation abstract, which is on one's website (even if the titles aren't there, often a candidate will describe his/her papers there--and that will show up when someone Googles phrases from the paper).

I'm finding it hard to scrub not only titles but even paper descriptions from all those places. Any advice?

This is a really excellent query. I too have repeatedly had the experience the reader mentions here -- of people searching for my paper's title and visiting my website or academia.edu page immediately after submitting it to journals. And I've heard many other people I know report similar experiences. What can be done to prevent it?

Some fun historical trivia on peer-review

I trust many of this blog's readers have something of a "love-hate" relationship with peer-review. On the one hand, peer-review aims to counteract bias in evaluating work for publication--and when one receives thoughtful, detailed comments by peer-reviewers, it can really improve one's work (I, for one, owe an immense debt of gratitude to some reviewers, as well editors). On the other hand, peer-review is often an incredibly frustrating process--with annoyances ranging from absurdly long wait times, to absurdly high rejection-rates, to unhelpful, unqualified, and/or meanspirited reviewers, to unethical Google reviewing, to referee comments that require one to turn an otherwise beautiful paper into a monstrosity (see below).   

Anyway, while I have suggested a number of reforms before that I think might improve the process, peer-review will likely always remain a very imperfect system. What, then, can we do (besides complain or push for reforms)?

Philosophical/scientific virtues and the history of inquiry

Last Friday, Justin Weinberg ran a post at Daily Nous speculating on what the virtues of a philosopher are, and proposing the following as an initial list:

• Humility – knowledge of the limits of one’s knowledge, including one’s knowledge of those limits
• Curiosity – the propensity to be dissatisfied with one’s lack of understanding, but not discouraged by it
• Charity – the disposition to first seek the wisdom in what others say
• Courage – the strength to not mistake uncertainty for danger
• Grace – gratitude to those who help save us from ourselves

Readers then chimed in with their own thoughts.  However, while such speculation may be fun, I cannot help but be skeptical of its epistemic value. Reality, after all, is no more obligated to conform to our untutored intuitions about philosophical virtue than it is obligated to conform to our intuitions about space and time, etc. The issue of which traits are in fact philosophical virtues is a partly conceptual question, and partly empirical. First, we need to settle what the proper aim(s) of philosophy are. Then we need to examine which traits or learned disposition are most conducive to achieving the aim(s) in question, using actual data rather than intuitions. So, let's think about these issues a bit more.

First, what are the proper aims of philosophy? One obvious problem is that different people have different conceptions. For some, I suppose the aim(s) of philosophy is truth (viz. true answers to philosophical questions). Others, however, might gloss the proper aim(s) of philosophy as 'understanding' (viz. Sellars' claim that, "The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term"). And so on. I'm not sure there is enough agreement on the aim(s) of philosophy to settle what philosophical virtues are. However, offhand, I think it's plausible that the aims of philosophy are not that different than the aims of science--as the sciences aim for truth, understanding, and so on.

So, let's take science as a rough model. How might we collect data on scientific virtues? Well, we would need to determine which dispositions in individual inquirers tend to lead to the discovery of scientific truth and generation of scientific understanding. I do not have such data, and am not sure that anyone does (does anyone know of any good studies here?). What I do have, though, is a fairly good grasp of scientific history. As I've mentioned before, one of my favorite pastimes is reading intellectual biographies on famous philosophers and scientists from history. What, if anything, do those sources suggest? What types of traits and dispositions did scientists who contributed immensely to discovery of scientific truth and understanding tend to have? Did they tend to have the kinds of traits Weinberg proposes?

I cannot purport to provide anything like firm answers to these questions. However, as luck would have it, I purchased, "The Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking", this past Saturday and decided it would be fun to put together a compendium of reports on the traits and dispositions of different theorists. I've also used a couple of other sources, and here is what I found:

Journal prestige and philosophical impact

A few years ago, I floated the idea that perhaps we should judge philosophical research (and researchers) less on the basis of venue (i.e. journal prestige) and more on the basis of philosophical impact (i.e. citation-rates and discussion). These thoughts were inspired by my sense at the time that a significant number of published articles in highly ranked journals were not being cited very much, let alone actively discussed in the literature in an impactful way.

These thoughts were rekindled the past couple of days by two social-media posts by philosophers I know. First, one philosopher posted the following chart that Kieran Healy put together based on citation-rates of articles in four of our highest-ranked journals from 1993-2015:

 

Among Healy's more striking findings are that over this 22-year period:

1. The mode number of times that published articles in those four journals were cited was zero. 
2. Most articles appearing in those journals were cited no more than a handful of times.

In other words, as highly ranked and prestigious as these journals may be, it appears that a majority of their published articles make a small philosophical impact (viz. citation and further discussion in the literature).

Notice--just to be clear--that this isn't to say that the journals in question shouldn't be so highly ranked. After all, the data is entirely consistent with the hypotheses that these journals tend to publish better and more "game-changing" work than other journals. What it does suggest, however, is that one "shouldn't judge a book by its cover"--that perhaps we should evaluate work less on where it appears, and more on whether it makes any discernible impact in the discipline. Alternatively, since there are plausible sociological worries regarding why a given author or work makes an impact (e.g. author prestige, etc.), perhaps it suggests that we should all read and cite more work--as there are serious epistemic issues with prevailing norms.

In any case, just today Brian Weatherson posted another intriguing set of findings, this time on citation trends of articles published in five highly-ranked journals (Mind, Nous, JPhil, Phil Review, and Phil Studies) from the 1976 to the present. Here are the trends:

Fig 1. Citation rates in 31 journals

Fig 2. Citation rates across all journals in the Web of Science Arts & Humanities Index

As Weatherson notes, the most striking thing in both data sets is how citation-rates of articles appearing in the four most prestigious journals (JPhil, Mind, Phil Review, and Nous) have dropped precipitously over time, while citation-rates of Phil Studies articles have climbed. Further, as Weatherson also notes, this cannot be attributed primarily to Phil Studies publishing substantially more articles than the other journals, as this feature of Phil Studies relative to the other journals has been constant over time. Rather, what appears to have happened is that the average Phil Studies article has increased its impact on philosophical discussion, while the opposite has occurred for the other four journals. As Weatherson writes, "A big part of the story is that Philosophical Studies went from having its not-so-huge articles get 5 citations a piece, to getting 10 citations a piece, and that adds up." 

What should we make of these findings? I don't know -- which is why I thought I might simply open things up for discussion!

A true story, but also a parable?

The following is a true story:

Several years ago, my mother took our family dog (R.I.P.) out in the backyard to do his 'nightly business.' An unexpected rustle in the dark led the dog to growl and confront the intruder. It turns out the intruder was a mother raccoon with several of her babies. To protect them, the raccoon attacked the dog. To protect the dog, my mother the screamed and attacked the raccoon--and the raccoon attacked her. My father, who was in the shower, heard her screams and rushed outside naked with a baseball bat to protect my mother, who he feared was being assaulted by burglars. At that point, a next-door neighbor heard the commotion, and called to police to protect my mom "from a naked man wielding a baseball bat." Several minutes later, a number of police stormed the house like a SWAT-team with guns drawn, ordering my dad to drop then weapon. Finally, animal control showed up to capture and put the raccoon to sleep--and my mom and dog got driven to the hospital and emergency vet.

What a disaster, right? Yet here's the thing: so much of human life seems sadly analogous to it. Time and again, we see violent escalations arise from each side of a disagreement insisting that their standpoint is right--that they and they alone have discovered the God's Honest Truth. We see this throughout human history up to the present. In the Crusades, Catholics and Muslims both claimed to be 'in the right'--and so they fought. In the European religious wars, Catholics, Protestants, etc., claimed to be in the right--and so they too fought. More recently, both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict argue that their side is in the right--and so they fight. Democrats and Republican think they are in the right--and so we fight. And, of course, on blogs, social media, etc., we see broadly the same thing. Wherever we look--on the news, in politics, in academia, etc.--everyone argues they are in the right...and so we constantly fight.

When will we ever learn? Better yet, what do we need to learn if we want these kinds of horrible cycles to cease? Allow me to offer up an answer to the latter question, and then return to the former question.

Grappling with failure(s): how did you do it, and what did you learn?

In my post the other day on Eric McCormack's, "Some Lesser Known Lessons from Academia", I mentioned how in my experience his lesson #3 ("You don’t need to feel like you’re succeeding") is really apt. One of the biggest challenges of academia is that you "fail" far more often than you succeed. Consequently, learning how to grapple effectively with failures--both large and small--is absolutely vital for burgeoning academics. Whether one wilts in the face of failure, or whether one finds away to recover and adapt, can make not only an enormous difference in whether one succeeds professionally, but also with one's mental well-being. I know this from experience. I went through some terrible times early in my career--both in graduate school and during my many years on the job-market--and, in all honesty, barely made it though.

Anyway, over at his blog Digressions&Impressions, took up McCormack's topic as well, discussing one of his own tough times in grad school:

A recent dinner with friends from graduate school and Daniel McCormack's useful post (see also this moving piece by the late Josh Parsons) brought to mind a painful memory: my equivalent of what McCormack calls the "candidacy defense."...For me this exam came in my fourth year.

I knew my draft-chapter was not very strong...[And] My Preliminary Essay evaluation process had not been a happy experience because the committee was very divided about the quality of my work (about that some other time)...

I don't recall much about the actual candidacy defense, except that it was in my supervisor's office, and that after, I felt like a total intellectual idiot/nitwit. (The more recent jargon would be imposter.) It was clear that my project relied on half-baked assumptions and badly understood distinctions. Even though none of them had any special expertise on my topic, they had seen right through the project and honed in on its weaknesses. They were not mean, and I sensed no ill-will toward me (and this made it worse); it was strictly business, and I was left holding unsaleable shmattes. While they were conferring on my fate, I recall sitting in the hall-way too numb too feel, but contemplating if I should apply to law-school at once or move with my Bullmastiff to Red Lodge, WY, and spend the rest of my life in exile from the world.  (No way I was going home having proved myself such a failure.) Before going to graduate school, I spent a year working in corporate America researching by phone what kind of Linotype printers European print-shops owned, and I was not eager to go back to such mindless drudgery.

Schleisser's story got me thinking that it might be helpful if we all shared some of our own biggest failures as early-career folk, and how we grappled with them. I think this might be helpful for two reasons.

'Lesser known lessons from academia'

My attention was drawn today (via Daily Nous) to this piece by Daniel McCormack on "some lesser known lessons of academia." In brief, McCormack's lessons are that academia is likely to be a good fit for you only if:

1. You like working on long-term projects.
2. You are good at managing your time over very long time periods.
3. You don’t need to feel like you’re succeeding.
4. You don’t care where you live.
5. You don’t mind moving frequently, or being very mobile in general.

Aside from the obvious problem of knowing in advance (prior to spending 7-10 years in a PhD program) whether you'll be cool with any of these things, my experience is that they are all pretty spot-on, but especially #3. 

Reader queries on disability and UK jobs

In the comments section of our newest "How can we help you?" post, a couple of readers asked questions about the 'Two Ticks" policy in the UK, which evidently requires institutions "to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria for a job vacancy and consider them on their abilities." Amanda wrote:

So I am applying for a job in the UK and would really appreciate feedback as I am super conflicted about this. So I have a disability, but usually lie or give no answer when asked this on the job application. So someone on this site mentioned that the Uk guarantees an interview if you have a disability. This time around, I said yes on the application, and sure enough they informed me that I would be guaranteed an interview and asked if I wanted to proceed. I am very conflicted about this. It is not so much that I am against affirmative action, but this seems a pretty extreme version of it. In addition, I don't want to go through an interview when they are just interviewing me to comply with the rules. Also, if I would get an interview anyway I would rather they not know about the disability. What does everyone think of this? I have not turned in the application yet, but I only have a few days. Feedback is much appreciated!

Similarly, 'Stuck PhD' wrote:

The Two Ticks scheme in UK job applications is also of interest to me. I have a rather serious and sometimes-disabling autoimmune disorder, but I've always figured that an obligatory interview is a waste of my time and the interviewers'.

Does anybody (most likely, I suppose, a person who's been offered a job) know of a case where a disability-guaranteed interview has resulted in a job offer?

As this is a policy I was not familiar with until now, I think it might be best to have an open discussion of Amanda's and Stuck's queries: Should Amanda feel conflicted ('really' doesn't think so!)? Does the Two Ticks policy work (i.e. does it benefit candidates with disabilities)? Also, given the very broad definition of disability provided, who should avail themselves of the policy? (An example: I've never given a second-thought to declaring a disability myself, despite having a very serious sleep disorder and some other conditions that, before they were well-treated, did seriously compromise my ability to carry out day-to-day tasks).

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Tomas Bogardus

Today's interview with a philosopher who shares his passion outside of philosophy is Tomas Bogardus, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He works mostly on the mind-body problem and the rationality of religious belief, and has a forthcoming paper on whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Let me know at helenldecruz at gmail dot com if you'd like to be featured! 

1. Can you tell me something about your side-interests/hobbies, and how you got into them?

Most of my free time is spent hanging out with my wife and daughter, and that’s what I enjoy most. Aside from that, these days, I have three main hobbies. I’ve been surfing for about twenty years now, and being near the ocean was an attraction of my current job at Pepperdine. My commute into Malibu takes me down the coast through Ventura and western Malibu, and there are lots of surf spots on the way. When I have some extra time and the waves are good, I’ll magically compress a longboard or a funboard into my Honda Accord and make a little surf stop on the way to campus.

My wife, my daughter, and I live at a bit of an elevation now, close to Los Padres National Forest, and it gets cool at night, so I’ve learned from my neighbors how to hunt, butcher, and season firewood. (Don’t worry, the trees have all fallen naturally.) On one of these adventures, I happened into some really beautiful and rare wood from a giant Catalina Ironwood tree that had died in the drought. The wood has a shimmering ochre color, it’s super dense (hence, “ironwood”), and looks almost like copper when it’s sanded and finished. After burning more of the wood than I’d like to admit, I decided to try my hand at shaping it into little hearts and triangles, and gifting them to my wife and daughter who display them around the house. At first I had only a circular saw, which I’d run with one hand while guiding the wood with my other hand. By the grace of God, no fingers were lost during that reckless confusion. Things have progressed a bit now, I have better tools, and some of the necklaces I’ve made are featured in a local store here in my hometown, and on the website of a chic local clothing line. (You can see some by following the new ojai_holtz account on Instagram.)

Should authors respond to book reviews?

I came across Pea Soup's NDPR Discussion Series today, which features authors responding to book reviews, and am curious what readers think: should authors respond to book reviews? If so, when? If not, why not?

As an author of a relatively new book myself, I confess to feeling a bit torn here. On the one hand, I very much appreciate why authors might want to respond to reviews, particularly if they are invited to do so or if they have philosophical concerns about the content of a review, such as misrepresentations of their work. Further and more generally, as a philosopher I find myself attracted to the idea of scholarly debate and discussion: if a book is reviewed, it might be illuminating to see how the author responds. Finally, because academic books are expensive; because the reception of a book can make a difference to an author's career (including tenure and promotion decisions); and because books by early-career authors may only receive a handful of reviews (journals can be selective in which books they decide to review), there may be a pragmatic case to be made for responding to some reviews. I cannot help but be reminded here of R.M. Hare's brutal two-part review of Rawls' A Theory of Justice in The Philosophical Quarterly, which concludes:

In concluding this not very sympathetic notice, it must be said that a reviewer with more ample patience and leisure might possibly have done better for Rawls. I have taken a great deal of pains (and it really has been painful) trying to get hold of his ideas, but with the feeling all the time that they were slipping through my fingers...The book is extremely repetitious, and it is seldom clear whether the repetitions really are repetitions, or modifications of previously expressed views. I have drawn attention to some of these difficulties, and there are all too many others. Rawls is not to be blamed for failing to keep the whole of this huge book in his head at the same time (the only way to avoid inconsistencies when writing a book); and still less are his readers. He is to be blamed, if at all, for not attempting something more modest and doing it properly.

Many years ago [Rawls] wrote some extremely promising articles, containing in germ, though without clarity, a most valuable suggestion about the form and nature of moral thought. It might have been possible to work this idea out with concision and rigour (Rawls' disciple Mr Richards has made a tolerably good job of it in his book A Theory of Reasons for Action, which is much clearer than Rawls' own book as an exposition of this type of theory). If Rawls had limited himself to, say, 300 pages, and had resolved to get his main ideas straight and express them with absolute clarity, he could have made a valuable contribution to moral philosophy. 

Because reviews can be fair or unfair, charitable or uncharitable, etc., it is not hard to imagine philosophical or professional reasons why an author might want to respond to some reviews. And indeed, as a new author, I have given some thought to doing so myself.

At the same time, there seem to me to be pretty good countervailing reasons not to respond to reviews. First, there may be good pragmatic reasons not to: it might reflect poorly on the author (prejudicing other reviewers?); the author's time might simply be better spent publishing new work; and so on. Second, and perhaps more to the heart of the matter, my own feeling is that a published work can, should, and usually will ultimately speak for itself. After all, despite Hare's review, Rawls' book caught on. What Hare took to be serious errors in A Theory of Justice, generations of other philosophers took to be the foundations for research programmes. Similarly, as I'm sure we all know, Hume famously remarked that his Treatise "fell still-born from the press"--and, or so Wikipedia tells me of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, "Although now uniformly recognized as one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy, this Critique was largely ignored upon its initial publication...It received few reviews, and these granted it no significance." 

Now, of course, very few of us will be a Hume or Kant (I certainly don't pretend to be!). Still, my feeling is that the following principle may be the best perspective for authors to adopt: good work does not usually go unrecognized forever, bad work usually does not stand the test of time, and one must leave it to readers to decide for themselves. 

But these are just some of my current thoughts--and I am far from certain about them. What are yours? Should authors respond to book reviews? If so, when? If not, why not?

Reader query on grappling with professional frustrations

Last week, a reader by the name of 'Amanda' wrote into our most recent "How can we help you?" post with the following comment:

Okay,so I want to begin by apologizing for what is going to be a very negative post. Marcus I know that in the past you have written about falling out of love with philosophy, and I believe managing to re fall in love at some point. In any case, I have been feeling pretty down about philosophy lately, and find it hard to motivate myself to do my research, and other things that I should be doing to make myself a better philosopher. Here are some of the reasons I feel that way. (And,yeah, I realize these problems are problems for a lot of people, def. not just me, which is why I'm posting).

1. Being on the job market is a full-time job, and it has become even more so with the extended market. It seems like I am constantly either completing applications or preparing for interviews. Why this is frustrating, is it leaves little time to do anything else, and to improve my CV so I am more likely to get a job in the future.

2.Blind review is a joke. I know many people, both professors and students, who send their papers around to buddies before publication, or present them at conferences, and hence the person reviewing the paper knows who they are reviewing. What bothers me most about this is the guise of blind review and how people pretend that publishing is a fair assessment of philosophical ability. I do think there is some correlation between publishing and merit, maybe even a strong correlation, but it is absolutely not a fair game of blind review. I know a better person than me would just push on and write and submit the best work they can, but the insincerity of it all really saps my motivation.

3. I know that even when I do write great work and publish it, like less than 10 people will ever read my work. Once again, some people are better than me and can appreciate the intrinsic value of philosophy writing. I, however, love philosophy in so far as it is a conversation with others. I could do any old job and write my own philosophical musings in a journal. What makes the philosophy profession worthwhile is interactions with other philosophers. My writing however, seems to rarely result in such interaction.

4.Most work (or a lot of work) that gets published in top journals is 3/4 literature review and then makes a tiny point at the end. I find this kind of philosophy boring, both to read and write. Now it is fine that others like it, but I wish it was at least even and there was more space for new ideas that made major points rather than small adjustments to what has been said before. I do think a few journals are trying to expand their purview, which is a great development.

5. When I go to philosophy conferences, it seems that there is clear hierarchy for those who are big shots and those who are not. People have consistently been incredibly rude to me at conferences, as if their whole point is to tell me my paper is horrible and why the hell did I bother to present it? This happens all the time, and not just to me. Why does philosophy have to always be about showing someone how wrong they are? Why? In addition, it is common that I will raise my hand at a conference and am never called on, while all the big shots are called on.

6.The profession does not take teaching seriously. I was given absolutely no training as a teacher in grad school, and this is common. I wish we just cared a little more.

Okay, that's it for now. If anybody has any insights on how to get out of my super negative rut it would be much appreciated. And yes, I know my rant came off as whiny and unappreciative and I am sorry for that. It is because , however, that complaining in other forums is seen as socially unacceptable that I come here.

Thanks to all.

Amanda's frustrations resonate with me in part because (A) I did indeed temporarily fall out of love with (academic) philosophy in grad school for similar reasons; (B) I still struggle with some broadly related frustrations today; but most of all because (C) I have heard these kinds of frustrations (and many more) expressed repeatedly by other people I know in the profession, particularly (but not only) by early-career people.

Because in my experience frustrations with professional philosophy are not uncommon, I think indeed it might be beneficial to explore two issues in today's thread--namely:

1. Things that people find frustrating about the profession
2. How to grapple most effectively with those frustrations

I think exploring the first question may be helpful sociologically, to learn and draw attention to potential or at least perceived problems in the profession; and in turn, that exploring the second issue might be helpful not only to individuals (helping people like Amanda grapple with their frustrations in productive rather than unproductively), but also helpful to the broader profession, perhaps by drawing attention to ways in which we might all chip in to make our profession a better, less frustrating place to be. 

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Sara Uckelman

Today's interview with a philosopher who shares her passion outside of philosophy is Sara L. Uckelman, lecturer in philosophy at Durham University. Let me know at helenldecruz at gmail dot com if you'd like to be featured! 

1. Can you tell me something about your side-interest/hobby, and 2. How did you get into this hobby?

I’ll take these two together! It was the summer I was 13, and my mom saw an advertisement for what was essentially a local “Ren Faire”, and thought “that sounds like something Sara would be interested,” and we went on a family outing. Yes, indeed, it was something I was interested in, but I figured – there’s no way my parents will want to get involved, and there’s no way they’d let their 13 year old daughter go off and do this by herself, so I filed away the name of the group so I could look it up again when I went off to university.

One thing led to another and a few months later my mom was like “But I thought that group would be something you’d want to get involved in,” and it turned out they didn’t have any objections to my being involved without them! So that is how I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism a few months shy of my 14th birthday. This year, I have now spent 2/3 of my life as a member.

Photo by Rick Williams

The SCA is a world-wide educational non-profit dedicated to the study of pre-1600 European culture (and cultures it came in contact with). We have events on weekends filled with all sorts of medieval activities – cooking, sewing, music, fighting, fencing, archery, dyeing, brewing, calligraphy, illumination, you name it, we do it. It isn’t a re-enactment group like Civil War (American or British!) re-enactors are; we don’t re-create specific historic events or characters, and the only level of authenticity required of participants is that one makes an attempt at pre-1600 clothing – and “attempt” can be taken very loosely! People are encouraged to develop “personas”, but this is also not a requirement. My persona, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, lives in the 11th C and is the daughter of a minor Welsh lord; she’s widowed and has three childrens, and beyond that, the details are hazy.

Because it is a world-wide group, I have been able to be involved continuously through undergrad grad school, through moving from one continent to another, to living in three different countries in the latter continent. After we moved to Europe, my husband told me that if there were ever an event in some neat castle or something, maybe he’d like to come too. So I took he to Raglan Castle, where we have a 10 day event every August. Now, the SCA is a family affair; our five-year-old daughter has been attending events since she was four months old. When we moved from Germany to England 2.5 years ago, we moved 20 minutes away from another SCAdian family, whose young daughter was already a friend of ours. How often do you move countries and end up 20 minutes away from good friends?

3. Do you have goals that you want to achieve (e.g., getting to a certain level/winning in a certain kind of competition?)

My main interests within the Society are heraldry and onomastics (the study of names); and calligraphy and illumination. I had long been interested in names, but it was taking on the office of “herald” in the Society (someone who helps people pick a medieval name and coat of arms, and develop a persona) that caused me to concentrate this interest into pre-1600 Europe, and to first learn about medieval names and naming practices, and then ultimately being doing my own original research. As a result of my research, I held the highest onomastic office in the Society for two years about a decade ago – in the middle of writing a PhD in medieval logic, my onomastic research gave me an outlet that was still scholarly but <i>wasn’t</i> my dissertation!

4. Are there any accomplishments that you are particularly proud of and want to share?

So many. A few years ago, I finally took my onomastic research “professional”, so to speak, and launched the Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources; (blog http://dmnes.wordpress.com/), an ongoing concern that I have actively incorporated into my academic research agenda. I, who have always felt I had no artistic skill whatsoever, have developed my drawing and painting skills to be able to create beautiful images on parchment, often with real gold leaf (see here for pictures!). And, despite both being bad at sewing and hating it, I have managed to sew enough outfits to keep three people entirely clothed medievally for a 10 day stretch. Oh, and I’ve recently gotten into sausage making and charcuterie. I make a damned good lamb bresaola, if I do say so myself.

5. How do you make enough time for your hobby?

It’s been a part of my life for so long, its just part of the routine. Some years we get to more events than others, but if I need to be sewing new clothes for an event, then I sew while watching TV in the evenings, or I bring my sewing along to departmental meetings. If I have an illumination commission that I need to finish, my daughter and I will sit and paint together on a weekend. My onomastic research has always been my haven and quiet space – if ever I am stressed or anxious or worried about something, if ever my other research isn’t going well, I can sit down and transcribe and analyse some names, and come away relaxed and with a sense of accomplishment. I also like to tie getting to events with traveling for conferences; because it is a world-wide group, pretty much anywhere I might go for a conference is within spitting distance of a local branch. Maybe they’re having an event the weekend after the conference, or even just a local get together, or maybe I can just meet up with someone for a beer. 

Photo by Delia Richter

6. Does your hobby relate to philosophy at all? Any crossovers?

The SCA is how I ended up doing a dissertation in medieval logic in the first place! When I first discovered that not only were they writing logic textbooks in the 13th and 14th centuries, what they were writing was really really interesting in terms of modalities and dynamics, my first thought was “What, you mean I can combine my hobby and my academic interests into one and write a dissertation on it?!” I also love giving classes on logic and philosophy at SCA events. Two of the highlights of my logic/teaching career involved Raglan Castle: One year I lectured on Paul of Venice’s Logica Parva (c. 1400) in Latin (well, partially), and another year, I hosted a public salon on Avicenna’s Logic, complete with drawing a square of opposition in the dirt beneath one of the castle bridges (see here). (for more info on the SCA see here www.sca.org) 

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Gregg Caruso

Today's interview with a philosopher who shares his passion outside of philosophy is Gregg Caruso, Associate Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning. Let me know at helenldecruz at gmail dot com if you'd like to be featured! 

1. Can you tell me something about your side-interest/hobby

For several years now, I have been obsessed with collecting fossils. Since I live in central New York State, most of what I hunt and find myself comes from the Devonian period—a geologic period of the Paleozoic, spanning roughly 60 million years from the end of the Silurian (416 million years ago) to the beginning of the Carboniferous (358 million years ago). The fossils in the Devonian rocks of New York have attracted the attention of serious and causal collectors for nearly 200 years. I am very lucky to live in such a fossil-rich part of the country! At the start of the Devonian, the North American protocontinent was located at the equator, with much of what would become New York covered by a shallow tropical sea. The fossils in this area provide a nice snapshot of the rich diversity of life in the ancient Paleozoic waters. I sometimes joke and say "I collect seashells, they just happen to be 390 million years old." The most common fossils in this area are brachiopods, gastropods, cephalopods, and various species of sponges and coral. If you are lucky, however, you may also find eurypterids (ancient sea scorpions) and trilobites (ancient arthropods that look like little alien bugs).

Now that I have been collected for a number of years, I really prize the "big finds"— which for me are full trilobites. They are very hard to come by because most of the time you just find bits and pieces—e.g., a part of the head shield, a segment of the thorax, or a tail piece. It is also hard to find fully outstretched ones since trilobites when scared would tuck in their legs and antennae and roll themselves into tight little balls. Collectors call these "rolly pollies" and I have at least a dozen of them. My most prized fossils, however, are the fully outstretched trilobites I have collected myself.  

Here is one example. I found this little guy by cracking open rocks at a quarry near Buffalo, NY. I typically use hammers and chisels of various sizes when I'm out collecting. If I am luck enough to find a trilobite, I then bring it home and take it to my prep lab, which I built in my garage. With this trilobite I used drills and picks to shape the rock and clear away some of the big stuff. Then for the more delicate work, I put the little guy in my blast tank and use my airgun. The abrasive and air pressure need to be enough to eat away the rock but not the shell of the trilobite. As you can imagine, it took a lot of trial and error for me to figure out the right combination. In the end, though, you get this beautiful display piece! 

In addition to going out and hunting fossils, I also buy and trade fossils with other collectors. My collection includes some museum-quality pieces. I have a number of big and small ammonites, some rare species of trilobite from around the world, as well as dinosaur bones, teeth, eggs, and tracks. At some point, I will need a larger space to display my collection—it is starting to take over our house. 

 

2. How did you get into this hobby? 

 It was my daughter Maya. She rekindled in me a love of dinosaurs and one weekend I thought it might be fun to go out searching for fossils together. I also thought it would be an enjoyable educational activity for the whole family. Since there are no dinosaur fossils in this area, we started looking for other things. At first I just fumbled about not knowing where to look or what to look for. Then I started doing some research. I discovered a great fossil park near Buffalo, NY called Penn Dixie. During our first trip there I got hooked. We started finding horn coral (buckets of it), brachiopods, and pieces of trilobites. I left with a new hobby. My wife, Elaini, and Maya also enjoyed themselves—Maya especially enjoyed playing among the rocks and hitting things with her hammer. We still enjoy going there, even if now I often have to bribe my daughter by promising to take her to Chuck E. Cheese afterwards.

Over time, though, my hobby has become an obsession. I now typically go on fossil trips myself. I joined a few groups that organize outings—such as the New York Paleontological Society and Paleontological Research Institution. And when I am traveling or on vacation I also like to see if there are any good fossil locations nearby. Last summer when we were down in Florida, for example, my wife sent me on a day trip for my birthday down the Peace River with a guide searching for ancient shark teeth. It was a great adventure. After rowing for about an hour, I had to stand in chest-high water with a shovel and sifter digging into the gravel bed below. I was a bit nervous because I saw three alligators long the bank of the river but it was worth it since I left with dozens of shark teeth, including two megalodon teeth.  

3. Do you have goals that you want to achieve (e.g., getting to a certain level/winning in a certain kind of competition?) 

I have no particular goals. Of course I would love to unearth a complete dinosaur skeleton or discover a new species of trilobite, but that will never happen. I will have to settle for going out west one day and spending a few weeks looking for dinosaur fossils with an expert. I fancy myself an amateur paleontologist and I just want to continue learning. It has been a very rewarding hobby thus far and I just want to continue doing what I’ve been doing for as long as I can. 

4. Are there any accomplishments that you are particularly proud of and want to share? 

I’m not sure it’s an accomplishment, but I am very proud of the skills I have acquired finding and preparing fossils. While the process can be time consuming, the end result is a one-of-the-kind work of art.

5. How do you make enough time for your hobby? 

That’s difficult. I always have a number of projects in the works so one’s free time is never truly free. Nevertheless, I just force myself to take the time. It’s a great hobby because it includes a number of different components. It’s part treasure hunt, part scientific adventure. And when you do not have the time to go out hunting for fossils, you can always read and learn more about fossils. Or you can go into your lab and prep some fossils. Or you can work on keeping records or create informational cards for your fossils. Or you can simply study your fossils.

6. Does your hobby relate to philosophy at all? Any crossovers?

Well, there is some really interesting work being done in the philosophy of paleontology. See, for example, the blog Extinct, which is run by several philosophers who work at the crossroads of philosophy and paleontology. Reading that blog has tempted me to write about my two loves (philosophy and fossils) and how they relate, but I haven’t found the opportunity to do so yet. Perhaps one day I will write a book entitled Socratosaurus, exploring questions about knowledge, language, and the philosophy of science through the lens of paleontology. There definitely are issues to be explored here. Unfortunately, I have not done so myself.

On a more basic level, however, I will say that my hobby has provided me with a deeper understand of evolution—and evolution has always been of great philosophical interest to me. To that extent, they are related.

 

Passions of philosophers outside philosophy - Rachel McKinnon

This is our first instalment of the philosophy side-interest/hobby project. The author is Rachel McKinnon, Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Charleston. 

Can you tell me something about your side-interest/hobby? 

I race bikes (bicycles) at an elite level internationally. In the US, I carry a ‘Category 1’ license, which is the highest category (they go from 5 to 1). I also have an international ‘UCI’ license, which lets me race around the world. This year, I’ll race primarily in the US, and I’m targeting the Canadian Elite Road National Championships in June. Next spring, I’ll spend some time in and around the Netherlands racing (e.g., possibly also Belgium, Germany, France).

I also co-founded and serve as captain for an international cycling team, Foxy Moxy Racing. Our one sentence description is: "Racing bikes, radically promoting trans and gender non-conforming inclusion in sport." We have racers all over the US and Canada. That adds an extra, interesting layer to my life.

I started racing just over two years ago. I’ve been an elite athlete most of my life, with my primary focus on badminton and golf when I was younger. But when I moved to the US in 2014, there wasn’t any elite badminton in my area. I needed a new sport, and somehow I found myself in cycling.

At the moment, I train 12-15hrs/week. In the winter it’s a little more (up to 18-20hrs/week).

 

How did you get into this hobby?

 Since I couldn’t really continue training in badminton without quality facilities and competition in my area, I struggled to stay fit. I don’t really like running, and it’s pretty hard on my body. So I put on some weight, and found my way in a spin class in December 2014. And I loved it! I had a road bike in undergrad, and had thought about racing, but never got around to it. I was loving the spin classes and decided to buy a road bike in February 2015. I did my first race in March 2015, and won my first race in April.

Are there any significant accomplishments you’d like to share?

I’m a two-time defending state champion in the road race and current criterium champion. In 2016 one of my main season goals was the Crossroads Classic, a four-day race series in NC. I won all four stages, the overall yellow jersey, and the blue jersey sprint competition. I also took 3rd in a big pro criterium—the USA Crits Speed Week #3: Michelin Test Track event. In 2017 I’ve had a great start to my season with four wins, including Stage 2 in the pro Tour of the Southern Highlands stage race.

Do you have goals that you want to achieve (e.g., getting to a certain level/winning in a certain kind of competition?)

My primary goal is to win the 2018 Canadian Elite Road Race National Championships. I’m hoping to be on the podium this year. I think that’s attainable. My really ambitious goal is to make Team Canada for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the road cycling event.

Does your hobby relate to philosophy at all? Any crossovers?

 My various sports careers (including my 6yr stint as a professional poker player) have certainly informed my philosophical work on the metaphysics of luck and how we evaluate performances. I think that athletes (and poker players, definitely) have fairly sophisticated understandings of luck and how to think about performance norms. I draw on sports examples often. Much more recently, I’ve been working on issues of trans-inclusive sport ethics, law, and policy. And being an elite trans athlete is certainly helpful for that work! Increasingly, I find myself enjoying that work, too. I think it has the chance to make a real difference in people’s lives. I’ve also started teaching our sports ethics course, and the personal experience as an elite athlete is extremely valuable.

 How do you make enough time for your hobby?

Really, really good time management. I basically only have my work and my cycling. I’m single; I don’t have much time for a social life. I don’t really drink, since that interferes with training. I think I’m pretty lucky that I’m able to finish projects relatively quickly. But I’ve certainly had to scale back my research output as my cycling became more serious. I rarely work on weekends, as I’m usually doing 8+ hrs of training, or I’m out of town racing. So I mostly schedule my life around training and racing where I can. I have a really good daily planner and calendar!

Tips for doing public philosophy?

There has been some good discussion recently on what we should do as philosophers in these politically turbulent times. I myself have increasingly felt--especially as a moral and political philosopher--as though I should get more involved in "public philosophy": publishing pieces in non-academic outlets for a broader audience.

To that end, dating back to early last summer, I composed a handful of pieces on contemporary social, political, and economic affairs. Alas, I haven't (yet) had any luck with them (a few of them have been under review, others turned into academic pieces and submitted to journals, etc.). I've also really struggled as a writer to feel like I can hit the right level of sophistication versus accessibility. On the one hand, whenever I write something short and super-accessible (the kinds of things popular venues tend to publish), I feel like the piece is terrible--too polemic, glossing over important intricacies and supporting facts or theories (I think it's important to base public arguments on facts!). On the other hand, whenever I write something I feel better about, it seems more like an academic piece (much longer, rife with citations, etc.).

In any case, because doing "public philosophy" isn't something that most of us academic philosophers have experience with or training in, I thought it might be good to get some tips from people who have done it successfully. Here are just a few questions I have:

1. What's the best way to go about the process (i.e. submitting proposals, pieces, etc.)?
2. Do you need to have an "in" with an editor to be successful?
3. What tips do you have for "hitting the right level" for readers?
4. Which venues would you suggest?

I'm particularly interested in question (2), in part because as John Scdwenkler notes here, "I have written a bunch of reviews and essays for popular publications. It's always been by way of contact with an editor (sometimes initiated from their end). I have tried submitted unsolicited things once or twice, and I don't think that's ever worked out."

Any public philosophers out there have any helpful tips for those of us who want to get more involved?

Query on philjobs new hires reporting

There has been an interesting discussion of recent philjobs appointments data in the comments section of our recent post on getting teaching experience in UK graduate programs. One thing that came up in the discussion is how many people are actually reporting their new appointments. As one anonymous commenter wrote,

Almost none of the hires made of people from my (top ten) department for the past couple years are on philjobs. Neither is there info about many of my friends who have gotten jobs lately.

This raises some interesting questions--among them, how many new hires are not reporting their new appointments, and why? It might help to have some more information on this, if people are willing to chime in. First, it might provide some insight into current sociological forces in the profession (viz. incentives not to report hiring). Second, it might also provide some insight on how representative the philjobs appointment data is, giving those interested in hiring data some idea of which demographics may be under-reporting.

Anyone who has gotten a job recently but not announced it on philjobs have willing to (either openly or anonymously) share their reasons?

Descartes on attentive attention to philosopher's viewpoints and belief polarisation

Re-reading the Meditations, including the lengthy objections and replies, I came across this passage

I wrote “Meditations” rather than “Disputations”, as the philosophers have done, or “Theorems and problems” as the geometers would have done. In doing so I wanted to make it clear that I would have nothing to do with anyone who was not willing to join me in meditating and giving the subject attentive consideration. For the very fact that someone braces himself to attack the truth makes him less suited to perceive it, since he will be withdrawing his consideration from the convincing arguments which support the truth in order to find counterarguments against it." (Meditations, second set of replies, CSM II, 112).

Descartes makes a striking psychological observation about belief polarisation: people are indeed less willing to take an argument or evidence seriously if it conflicts with earlier beliefs they hold, especially about matters that are closely tied to personal identity, such as childhood vaccinations, climate change, gun rights or abortion. Now it may seem a bit rich that Descartes cautions against readers who would not give his arguments their full due, especially given how he responded to, say, Thomas Hobbes, or Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia. 

But if we bracket for a moment how Descartes responded to his own philosophical interlocutors, the mindset he promotes is certainly worth striving towards. How can we cultivate this, say, in refereeing, or in Q and A sessions of conferences? Listening to arguments, trying to give them their full weight, and holding back the urge to counter-argue? I am curious if readers have tried debiasing approaches to cultivate this mindset, or to encourage it in others, for instance in conferences. 

Syllabus design: an occasional series. Part 4: Learning Outcomes Continued

by JG

In the last installment of this very occasional series, I talked about learning outcomes in a big-picture, ‘what are they and what’s the point?’ kind of way. Today I want to look at the issue more concretely, using an example from some of my own courses to make a few points. There are also a few ruminations about the point of graduate courses. So join me below.

Conference-Q&A Taxonomy and Etiquette

I had a conversation with a few early-career philosophers at the Eastern APA about conference Q&A etiquette, and we thought it might be fun and useful to dedicate a thread to the issue here at the Cocoon. Specifically, we thought it might be fun to develop a lighthearted taxonomy of different kinds of Q&A behaviors, and then helpful to discuss their etiquette. Here are a few examples I came up with (each of which I think I have either witnessed or been guilty of at some time or other):

The Bait and Switch (AKA "the Setup"): asking a seemingly innocuous question of clarification, and then responding to the speaker's clarification with a Definitive Refutation of the speaker's entire paper.

The N+1: An audience member has already asked question X or given objection Y some number of times N. They figure if they give a variation of it just one more time, the speaker will finally understand. :)

The Enough About Me, Let's Talk About Me: different variations of the following, "In your paper, you argued p. In my article N number of years ago, I argued ~p. Let me tell you about my argument...[N* minutes pass]...How do you respond to my argument?"

Do you have any lighthearted descriptions/names for common, peculiar, or questionable Q&A behavior you've witnessed? And do you think the behavior described is appropriate conference etiquette or not? Why? Finally, if you think the behavior is bad form, what (if anything) should session chairs (or session attendees?) do to prevent or respond to the issue?

Productive in Pedagogy: Some Advice for Instructors, Especially Grad Students

By JG

Recently there was a bit of a dust up over at Daily Nous about a guest post by Jason Brennan on productivity in publishing, with a response by David Enoch. Jason’s advice is actually pretty good, as far as it goes, and its better after he clarifies a few things in the comments on both posts (this is one of the few times I can remember learning something in blog comments, when the debate got more sophisticated as things went on).

However, as Jason notes, his advice is pretty restricted in scope, to grad students who want to publish a lot and are on track for jobs where publishing a lot is the most (only?) important thing. Most of us aren’t in that position, which means his advice is of somewhat limited value (I'll leave to one side the debate about whether we should want to be in that position, though you won't have to do much detective work to see what I think about that).

So, I thought I’d write a companion piece inspired by Jason’s post, about how to be productive in a teaching-centered position.

Battling the feeling of futility in a Brexit/Trump world

Months, what now seems aeons ago, a FB friend asked what we would rather have: a world of Clinton/Brexit, or a world of Trump/Remain. I could not imagine at the time that I would live in that brutal reversal of Leibniz, the world where both Trump and Brexit materialized. 

The lead-up to the referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU was very tense and acrimonious. The Leave campaign harped on about immigration from the EU and what a big problem immigrants were. The Remain campaign was silent about immigration, even though they could have brought up the economic and cultural benefits we immigrants bring to the economy. 

On the morning of 24 June, my husband told me Leave had won by a narrow margin - I dared not check myself. The feeling is hard to describe. I felt I got kicked in the stomach, and like everything I believed about the UK as being open, tolerant, was just a big sham. Working was impossible. I don’t know how I would have been able to grade papers or teach (24 June is outside of our term time). The Leave triumph got followed up by reports of hate crimes. A Polish man was beaten to death in the street for speaking Polish. The feeling of awfulness just stayed with me. 

American friends who came over for dinner said “We immediately thought when hearing the result, a Trump presidency is totally possible. It can happen. It’s scary”. And 5 months onward, they were right.

I know the demographics of the Leave voters and Trump voters are not the same. But the similarities are striking. So, looking at the US now, I see a repeat of what has happened here. I see lots of my American friends feeling angry, lost, unable to work, wanting to emigrate. The day after Trump won the presidential election, I had been working on a paper on prestige bias in philosophy. I think prestige bias in philosophy results in injustice, and shuts out people who are not middle-class and white. But as I was writing this paper, it suddenly felt so futile to write about problems in the profession of philosophy, given the magnitude of the political situation we are now faced with.

Part of this feeling of futility is that we are made to feel futile.  Academics are routinely dismissed as the out of touch elite, who somehow enabled this, or more charitably who were oblivious, living in a bubble. Leave campaigner Gove could not have been clearer: "People in this country have had enough of experts". We're out of touch with angry white voters. We're wrong in our cosmopolitanism and openness to diversity. As May would say, we're citizens of nowhere. So one important reason to battle the sense of futility is to counter the fake revolt led by elites who pretend not to be elites. Academics have a huge role to play in this. Bullshitters don't care about the truth, but we do (even if those truths are philosophical). We need to hold them accountable. 

How, concretely, do we continue to work? I don’t have answers. I am plodding on. I have started a petition to safeguard British education in the light of the Brexit vote (please sign – you don’t need to be a UK or an academic to do so), I organized a Daily Nous special section on Philosophers on Brexit, I wrote to my MP lots of times,  I joined a political party. I’ve written a couple of pieces for a large audience on free movement of people and on why MPs should have a say in the decision of whether the UK triggers the Article 50 procedure for exiting the EU. I am mindful of my students, some of whom are immigrants, others are people of colour, and what we can do to support them. Ultimately, our works and lives are not futile. I am convinced of that.

I am reminded of Sonia’s monologue all at the end of Uncle Vanya.

What can we do? We must live our lives. Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days before us, and through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us.

So what are Cocoon readers doing when they despair about the political situation about them?

What publishing advice are grad students receiving? Is it sound advice?

We have discussed publishing strategies on the Cocoon many times before--and I have on multiple occasions questioned the conventional advice that one should only publish in "top" journals. As I will once again explain below, my own personal experience does not sit well with this conventional advice--nor, I think, does it sit well with some general reflections on the nature of the academic job market. Given that we have discussed these issues so many times, why do I want to broach them again? The answer is simple: I have repeatedly (and recently) encountered graduate students who, or so they tell me, are still receiving the same advice I received while in graduate school--the advice to only publish in "top" journals, not in lower-tier ones (indeed, I was actually told to avoid publishing in lower-ranked journals, as it might "reflect badly" on me as a job-candidate). Why are grad students receiving this advice? And is it good advice? Let's work through some of this again.

How should we think about tensions between philosophical ideals?

I've been thinking a lot about Neil Mehta's writing guide for professional philosophers the past few days. In many respects, I think it is an excellent guide. Like some other philosophers I've known, I struggled to learn how to publish. I had several failed revise-and-resubmits at good journals while in graduate school, and felt for a long time like I would never "learn the formula" for publishing. Fortunately, as time went along, I slowly learned how to publish--and a lot of the things I think I learned are contained in Neil's guide! So, I think Neil's guide is an excellent resource: something that people who are struggling to publish can probably learn a lot from. In fact, I hope to write a few follow-up posts investigating some of Neil's suggestions in more detail, in the hope of providing readers a more concrete picture of how to follow up on those suggestions.

Today, though, I want to focus on something else I've been thinking about in connection with Neil's guide: the issue of how to think about and approach tensions between philosophical ideals. Let me briefly explain what I think those tensions might be, and why I think we should probably care about them, both as individual researchers and as a profession. I'll then open things up for discussion, and will be curious to see what you all think!