The Philosophers' Cocoon

Don’t Write “Public Philosophy”, Write Public Philosophy (guest post by Tamler Sommers)

This is the third installment of our series on publishing popular philosophy books, written by Tamler Sommers, University of Houston. 

Helen De Cruz invited me to write a post on writing for non-academic audiences in connection to my 2018 book Why Honor Matters – to give advice to early career philosophers about the process of writing and promoting a trade book.

Unfortunately, that experience isn’t the best model for this purpose. First of all, the “how it got made” story behind Why Honor Matters is too idiosyncratic. My podcast Very Bad Wizards (which debuted in 2012) attracted the interest of Russell Weinberg, an agent at a top agency for popular science books. Russell reached out to me sometime in 2014 and asked if I was interested in writing a trade book. I pitched him some topics – and the only one that excited the agency was honor. Next, I had to come up with a proposal. Trade book proposals are excruciating to write – for me at least. I tried and failed for more than two years to come up with a viable way to do a book-length exploration of honor. The topic was too broad, too amorphous, to bring into focus. I struggled with the tone too - I didn’t want to write an alarmist screed, I wanted the book to be upbeat, informative, to make readers rethink core convictions they take for granted…but also fun to read. I can’t stress enough how often I wanted to give up on this project, but Russell kept pressing me to get it done. Without that external pressure, along with a bunch helpful of ideas for revision, I would have quit years earlier. This was not a project I could’ve brought to fruition on my own.

And that was a big part of the problem. I’m convinced my struggles with the proposal were because I decided to write a piece of public philosophy without having anything specific in mind at the outset. I was doing this backwards, I knew the genre before I had the argument or even an idea of what I wanted to write about. I won’t do that again and I don’t recommend this approach to writing for the public. Before Why Honor Matters I started with a project I wanted to pursue, and the “for the public” side of it was almost incidental. My podcast (which led to the book) is a prime example. I wanted to do a moral psychology podcast not for public engagement purposes but because I loved podcasts, and I thought we could do it well. We do reach a wide audience - Very Bad Wizards gets well over 100,000 downloads per episode, and over 25 million in total. But we’re doing the show the way we want to do it and have from the beginning. My other public philosophy work, my interviews for The Believer magazine (which eventually led to two books of interviews), came about the same way. I wanted the chance to talk to researchers doing exciting work in science and ethics. My friend had just started a new magazine and she offered me the opportunity. I’m happy the interviews got some public attention but that wasn’t my goal at the outset.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been interested in reaching audiences beyond the small professional world we inhabit. I just think that the project itself should be your primary motivation, not its value or appeal as public philosophy. This is why until now I’ve mostly stayed out of the discourse on public philosophy on blogs and websites. “Should we write public philosophy” or “what is the value of public philosophy” are not good questions to discuss in general terms. The real question comes when you have an idea for a project, one that might count as “public philosophy” - should you devote your efforts to making that particular thing happen? And if you’re excited about the project, and you think you can pull it off, then who cares what people think about value of public philosophy in general?

I think debates like this are part of a more general tendency among younger academics to overstrategize or overthink their careers. In my view, success in this profession is too unpredictable to try to game the system. So do work you’re happy with and hope for the best. Back when I was publishing interviews and small popular pieces, some professors warned me the field wouldn’t take me seriously as a scholar if I did too many of them. As it turns out, my non-academic work was a boon for my academic career. The first person I interviewed for The Believer, Galen Strawson, ended up as the external member of my dissertation committee. My first academic book Relative Justice came about because Rob Tempio at Princeton UP reached out to me after reading 2005 Believer interview with Jonathan Haidt. The advance contract he was willing to give me helped me land the job I still have and love today. Why Honor Matters was the centerpiece of my file for full professor. Many of these connections were flukes, lucky breaks. It would’ve been crazy to undertake those projects as part of some sort of career plan.
Having said all of that, let me at least briefly perform the task that was requested of me: give some concrete advice to early career philosophers about writing for the public, and writing and promoting a trade book in particular.

The value of some wastefulness: robustness and serendipity

In academia, it's very common to think that you could have done more: work more efficiently, work better.

This perpetual guilt plagues all of us, particularly those of us on the job market, but even people with  tenured positions (which Covid-19 has also made less secure). 

Closely related to this idea that you could always have done more is the notion that you should optimize the time you manage to carve out for research. Job market consultants advise grad students and others on the job market not to waste their time doing such things as writing book reviews and other things with low CV value. You should be writing single-authored papers for top generalist philosophy journals! 

To this, I want to offer a bit of pushback. A bit of inefficiency and wastefulness is good. The idea that we should be hyper-efficient and streamlined is revealing itself as a failure on the level of society. In this article in Aeon, Barry Schwartz explains why efficiency is a dangerous idea: 

Why hadn’t we stockpiled key supplies and machines, built up hospital capacity, or ensured the robustness of our supply chains? The reason, of course, is that it would have been seen as inefficient and profit-robbing. Money spent on masks and gowns gathering dust in a warehouse could always be put to more ‘productive’ use in the marketplace. Likewise, employing more people than needed under ‘ordinary’ circumstances, or making products yourself rather than relying on international supply chains, would have been seen as inefficient. One lesson, then, is that to be better prepared next time, we need to learn to live less ‘efficiently’ in the here and now.

Giving philosophy its due?

A few weeks ago, a number of colleagues on social media shared the following piece, "Want a good job? Major in Philosophy", by Kristina Grob (University of South Carolina - Sumter). I think it's a great, concise summary of why philosophy isn't the kind of 'useless' degree many students and parents think it is, and in my experience information like this can really help attract majors. Just the other day, however, this piece appeared over at New Statesman arguing that it's "an offense against humanism" to try to rebrand higher education in terms of job-training. 

Like many philosophers I've spoken to, I suspect that giving students and parents information about how philosophy degrees can pay off is probably the best short-term way to 'sell the discipline': an important thing to do, I think, given the increasing number of philosophy programs and departments that are being shut down or threatened with closure. That being said, I really wonder whether it is the best long-term strategy, and for broadly the reasons the New Statesman piece points out: it plays right into the narrow set of values and priorities that philosophy and the humanities can get students to question--the latter of which is sort of the point of a liberal arts education: to develop well-cultivated citizens!

However, on that note, I'm inclined to think that the best kind of case for philosophy--at least in the longer-term--may be more than what the New Statesman piece mentions. The NS piece, after all, is not about philosophy per se, but rather higher education more generally. What does philosophy have to offer specifically, in addition to employability and personal cultivation? The answer, I'd like to suggest, is (broadly speaking) that the extent to which societies flourish or fail seems to be a matter of their animating philosophies.

Take for example ancient Athens. It was for a time the preeminent power in the Mediterranean, possessing nearly unparalleled wealth and power. And yet, as we see in Plato's dialogues and in the historical record (such as Pericles' infamous funeral oration), its citizens and political leaders became progressively corrupted by broadly the values that Thrasymachus defends in Book I and Socrates details in Book VIII of The Republic--the belief that justice is power ('might makes right')--as well as by the values that Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles all affirm in Gorgias: that the ability to speak persuasively (rhetoric) is the most important thing for young people to learn. The historical record here seems pretty clear: it was, broadly speaking, these philosophies that sowed the seeds of Athens' downfall. Athenians became so preoccupied with power and rhetorical ability that it enabled Pericles (whose rhetorical skills were legendary) to convince the populace that it would be a good idea to conquer Sparta--a completely unnecessary and reckless plan that set conditions for a plague (!) to decimate Athens, lose the war, and be taken over by the bloody tyranny of the Thirty Tyrants.

Why, then, should people value philosophy? Why should we fund it? Perhaps because in addition to making people good critical thinkers who can get jobs as well as cultivated people who can think about the 'big questions', we should care about it because philosophy really is socially important. Make no mistake about it: Nazism, slavery, colonialism, etc.--these were (and are) all philosophies, ones that have done untold damage. Philosophy, then, is not a luxury. Good philosophies can  improve civilizations, and bad philosophies can destroy them, leading to untold suffering. This, I think, is the deeper story we should be telling. It may well be a hopeless endeavor, of course, for broadly the reasons Socrates detailed in the Allegory of the Cave. But, for all that, I'm inclined to think this is the story we should tell: because it's a true one. Jobs are important. Personal cultivation is important too. But to focus on these things alone is, I believe, to vastly undersell the importance of what we philosophers do. History and the present alike make it all too clear: philosophy matters for the good of society and for the good of us all--and societies that fail to pay appropriate heed to this can and do pay a big price.  

Or so say I. What say you?

Contributing to society qua philosopher?

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

How can philosophers contribute to society at large? As a new grad student, I feel like I am missing the bigger picture on how philosophers can give back to society beyond teaching students.

I mean, the most obvious answer to this question is to do public philosophy--publishing well-reasoned, philosophical pieces on issues of public importance in highly visible venues (e.g. The Guardian, Slate, Aeon, etc.). Then of course you can volunteer for or otherwise work with public-facing organizations, ranging from think tanks to state or local UN Associations (the latter of which I did for several years, organizing public events and conferences in the Tampa Bay areas). But these are just a few ideas. I'd love to crowd-source more possibilities from readers in the comments section below!

My story of public engagement (guest post by Kevin Zollman)

This is the second installment of our series on publishing popular philosophy books. 

This is a guest post by Kevin Zollman, at Carnegie Mellon University, c0-author (with Paul Raeburn) of The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting: How the Science of Strategic Thinking Can Help You Deal with the Toughest Negotiators You Know--Your Kids (McMillan, 2017). 

When Helen asked me to write about my experiences writing a trade book, I realized that my story cannot be imitated.  Not because I’m an extraordinary talent that others couldn’t emulate, far from it.  Nor am I the most successful philosopher at doing public engagement, others have done a lot more.

Mine is a story with many accidents and lucky breaks.  But, then again, so too is almost every story of academic and public success. In that, I think there is something important: starting to become publicly engaged as an academic requires serendipity. You must recognize it when it comes your way and seize it.  I will tell my story and point out how easily I might have missed an opportunity that turned into another and another.  You can’t follow my path, but in seeing how much it twists and turns, perhaps you can come to appreciate the value of your own meandering.

The story starts, as so many do, with an email.  A young journalist for the local paper, Andrew McGill, reached out.  Andrew had taken a game theory class as an undergrad at Penn State, and always thought it had interesting real-world applications.  Now at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he had an idea: why don’t we write a “Dear Abby, but with game theory” column.  He knew he couldn’t do it himself, so he searched for local professors who taught game theory and landed on me.

Andrew and his editor, Lillian Thomas, asked to set up a meeting.  I chuckled at the idea and thought “this might be fun.”   I talked with them, and Andrew’s excitement for the idea was infectious.  I agreed to do a trial run.  They would get questions from around the office, send me a long list, I would choose ten and write answers.  They would read the answers, choose a few to print, and run it on a Sunday.  If it did well, they said, it might become a regular column in the paper.

It would have been easy for me to say no.  I was still pre-tenure.  This wouldn’t go on my CV, it wasn’t paid, and it wasn’t particularly high profile.  The Post-Gazette is a nice paper, but it’s not going to get national attention.  Beyond all this, I could have passed it off as something for someone else with more stature.  I wasn’t even the most senior game theorist in the philosophy department at CMU, much less at the university or in the city of Pittsburgh. If I wanted to say “no,” I had plenty of excuses. On the other hand, I wanted to connect with people outside of academia. This wasn’t the way I initially imagined doing it, but it was an opportunity. I decided I wasn’t too afraid of my colleague’s potential criticism.  This seemed like fun.  So I said “yes.”

Publishing popular philosophy books (and a travel book during an international lockdown) - Guest Post by Emily Thomas

This is a guest post by Emily Thomas of the University of Durham.

I recently published a popular book, The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad. Written partly as a travelogue, it explores philosophical issues around travel, from the Age of Discovery to the present day. I learned a few things from writing it, and I hope describing them might be useful.

 

Why write a popular book?

Not as an easy route to career advancement 

Academic monographs aim at the highest levels of scholarship: diligent, rigorous world-leading research. Although popular monographs can evince a great deal of research and undergo peer review, I assume most do – perhaps even should - fall short of this highest level. The kind of precise, pernickety attention to detail required of the highest scholarship fits awkwardly with works which aim (at least partly) at making ideas accessible and engaging. If you can produce accessible, engaging and world-leading research, then congratulations - you can stop reading now. 

Academics write books for all kinds of reasons. To prove something, explain something, tell a story. Here’s a reason not to write a popular book: to land an academic job or promotion. At least, I believe this is true of countries with established ‘research excellence’ frameworks, such as the UK, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, and Australia. In these contexts (and many others) what matters above all else is publications in leading peer-reviewed journals and academic presses. Universities are not motivated to hire or reward colleagues engaged in other kinds of publishing: popular books are neither ‘essential’ nor ‘desirable’ criteria for academic appointments or promotions.  

 
Philosophers might want to write popular monographs to facilitate public engagement or societal impact. The UK’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework saw case studies built around books by Clare Chambers, Marina Warner, and Robert Macfarlane. However, this involves much more than just writing a book. Publishing is a one-way communication between you and your readers, whereas public engagement or societal impact requires two-way communication. (On alternative ways to achieve impact as an early career scholar, see here and here). 

Public Philosophy for the Common Good

This is a guest post by Mike Austin (Professor and Coordinator of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Eastern Kentucky University):

I’ve always wanted to do something meaningful with my professional life (the lack of scare quotes around the term meaningful is intentional!). With all of the caveats and qualifications, being a professional philosopher has turned out to be an excellent choice for me and my family. It’s enabled me to spend my days doing things I love, at least mostly. It’s given me great freedom to pursue questions I’m interested in, as well as the flexibility as a parent and spouse that I’ve really valued over the years. I’m certainly fortunate that I received a tenure-track offer and have found a professional home for the past 15 years at Eastern Kentucky University.

Being a tenured full professor means I have less time for research than I had during the early years of my career. I have a 4/4 teaching load and teach one course every summer. Other responsibilities eat into research time as you progress in your career, at least at a teaching-focused institution. I’ve continued to make scholarship a priority. I’ve also made writing for a popular audience a priority for over 10 years now. I was able to begin doing public philosophy back in 2007, editing a book on running and philosophy. I contributed to several books in the popular philosophy genre, and edited or co-edited several more volumes on popular culture and philosophy. I also regularly write a blog at Psychology Today, Ethics for Everyone.

I think all sorts of philosophical writing has value, from the highest levels of scholarship to the trade publication or blog post aimed at a popular audience. Usually, my scholarly work is the foundation of my writing aimed at a popular audience.

I started doing public philosophy, and continue to do so, because I think philosophy has value for non-philosophers, if done in the right way. So many of the ideas we take for granted can be enlightening and even transformative for the general public. We can shed a lot of light, rather than merely increasing the heat, on a variety of significant or controversial issues.

Doing better for our graduate students, making a PhD in philosophy worth it

This story, by Rachel Williams, is simply entitled "A PhD in philosophy was not worth it".  The title reflects the contents well. The story's familiar, but that does not make it less sad:  Rachel Williams writes about the disillusionment, lost opportunities, low wages, and a profession that looks increasingly hostile and unattractive.  She lists the problems that plague the profession: the obsession with brilliance, the editorial buddy circles, publish or perish culture, the slim chances of getting a tenure track job out of grad school, or at all (after years of precarious employment), and the lack of support from peers or mentors. 

Suppose you make it in the profession. By 'make it', we will typically mean that someone is in their mid or late thirties by the time they land a tenure track job in a geographical area they will often not have chosen to live in, working on a 3/3 or even 4/4 course load, and earning a starting salary of anywhere between 49 and 76k (often the lower part of this range), which only slowly inches up over the years. While that is still a decent salary, you have to take into account the years of lower earnings and the risk in the market. 

What if you do not make it? Did you then just waste at least six years (at least, in the US) on graduate school that could have been spent better elsewhere? "You don’t really know what academic philosophy is really like before it’s too late." - Williams writes, regretting her lack of opportunities and lack of money in her retirement fund at age 32. 

The solution, some might argue, is to just have fewer PhDs in philosophy. But I'm not at all sure that is a good idea. If we restrict the number of PhDs, the barriers to entry to the profession will shift to earlier on in the process, and it will be more difficult for people without the cultural, economic and social capital (middle class, white, etc) to do a PhD in philosophy. Moreover, I think that a PhD in philosophy has value. I've interviewed people who went to grad school in philosophy who are successful writers of novels and have produced and co-written TV series,  as well as career coaches, statisticians, computer programmers, and  I was recently filmed for television series on science and religion by someone who studied (but did not complete) a Philosophy PhD. A Philosophy PhD is currently running for Member of the European Parliament (see here for an article in Dutch).  

I will be placement officer next year, so I'm thinking about ways to help support our grad students. Absolutely, if our graduate students see academia as their plan A, we should support them in that and help them to achieve this goal. We should be realistic about the range of jobs on offer (not every job is a job at a research-intensive, prestigious university; most aren't and that is fine) and we should help them to prepare and tailor their CV and materials for the places they want to land jobs at. 

But if our graduate students feel some hesitation at academia over time, it is important to recognize that and to support them in alternative career choices. Typically, in the humanities (though I am not aware of any empirical work on this and would like to hear about it), it seems to me people mostly start graduate school wanting to have an academic career. But over time, some grad students start doubting that teaching is for them, or that writing papers is for them, or that the combination of teaching and research really suits them. And then we should also support them in that. Maybe it is prudent to talk about non-academic placement in any case, just as a sensible plan B. 

Volunteering as a philosopher?

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

I would enjoy a post on "volunteering as a philosopher."

I am passionate about reducing climate change (for example), but I am not sure how to jump in and use my skills as a philosopher to advance this cause.

I could of course just volunteer "as a regular person", but I am curious if any philosophers have been able to link up with charitable or activist groups and use their skills as a philosopher specifically--kind of like a doctor or lawyer doing pro bono work.

If so, any stories or advice would be a helpful inspiration to me and maybe others!

This is a great query. In fact, it's one that I would afford to hear some good stories or advice about myself. My own experience 'volunteering as a philosopher' is pretty limited.

A.I. ethics piece at Medium

My first stab at public philosophy, "We're programming A.I. psychopaths - and how to avoid it", is now up at Medium. Hope you all find it interesting!