The Philosophers' Cocoon

What is it like to be a philosopher in Finland?

This is the thirtieth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. This post is by Kaisa Kärki (Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Helsinki) and Matias Slavov (Postdoctoral Fellow, Tampere University)!

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Thank you for Thomas Wallgren for checking the details of this post.

The Republic of Finland is a country in Northern Europe levelling up with Alaska. It is a parliamentary representative democracy known for its progressive taxation system and welfare policies. Finland is also known for its status as the happiest country in the world, and has been noticed for being led by young women. Even though Finland is often categorized as a “Scandinavian” country, the correct label is “Nordic”. Finland became a member of the European Union in 1995 and accepted the Euro as its currency in the late 1990s.

The population of Finland is around 5.5 million, officially speaking Finnish, Swedish, and Sámi – the language of the native population in northern Finland. Most Finns speak Finnish as their mother language; the Swedish speaking minority is about five per cent of the population. Finnish is unlike the North Germanic languages spoken in the Nordic countries, though this Simpsons clip (from 1:18 to 1:27) conflates Swedish and Finnish accents. Finnish, together with Hungarian, and Estonian, are Uralic languages. For an English speaker Finnish is categorized as very difficult to learn.

Children in Finland begin school at age seven and continue their education until they are 18 years of age. Until recently, secondary education after the first nine years of comprehensive school was voluntarily. After finishing 9^th grade adolescents typically choose either a vocational school or an upper secondary school known as a gymnasium. The latter prepares the students for university and includes two mandatory philosophy courses.

University education – including Bachelor level, Master level, and PhD studies – is free of charge, and the state provides students with financial aid, which consists of study a grant, a housing supplement, cheap meals at student restaurants, and a partly compensated, tax-deducible government guaranteed student loan. Still, more than half of students work while studying, as Finland is an expensive country to live in. In Finland most university students gain a Master’s degree, which usually consists of 120 ECTs. The Master’s degree is preceded by a Bachelor’s degree of 180 ECTs including at least one extensive minor of 40 ECTs.

Following the completion of a Master’s degree, it is possible to apply for a PhD researcher status. This process requires a suitable research plan and finding appropriate supervisors from the university. PhD research is typically supported with external funding. In Finland, just like in several other Nordic countries, there is a wide range of private foundations that especially support research in the humanities and the social sciences, interdisciplinary research, and independence of researchers – including setting up one’s own research group. Foundations such as Kone Foundation and The Finnish Cultural Foundation also fund PhD research. Some departments offer fixed-term doctoral researcher positions. A PhD candidate may also work in a project lead by a more senior scholar. Today, the term “doctoral researcher” is preferred over “graduate student”.

Six universities in Finland offer philosophy as a degree major: University of Helsinki, University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University, Tampere University, Aalto University and University of Jyväskylä. These universities also grant PhDs in philosophy. Philosophy can be studied as a minor at the University of Oulu, the University of Lapland, the University of Eastern Finland, and the University of Vaasa. Professional philosophers can also be found from Aesthetics, Jurisprudence, and Systematic Theology as well as several interdisciplinary research centers such as the Center of Excellence EuroStorie.

In Finland, as well as in several other Nordic universities, theoretical and practical philosophy are often separated. At the University of Helsinki, they are also in different faculties; Theoretical Philosophy with Philosophy in Swedish in the Faculty of Arts, and Practical Philosophy in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Theoretical philosophy is considered to contain logic, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and history of philosophy, whereas practical philosophy includes ethics, social and political philosophy, and philosophy of the social sciences.

Teaching is usually held in Finnish or English or in Swedish in Swedish speaking departments. Both undergraduate and graduate students can apply for the Erasmus exchange program or a Fulbright grant, both of which enable students to study abroad for a semester or two.

A monograph is perhaps the most common format of a doctoral dissertation in philosophy, although many PhD students write a collection of articles. Dissertations are generally written in English, although some are completed in Finnish or Swedish. To be granted the PhD, the applicant must attend a public defense. This is called “väitöstilaisuus”, which roughly translates as “occasion of debate”. The opponent, typically a professor from abroad, reads the dissertation in advance and then poses a range of critical questions. If the applicant effectively answers the questions, the opponent will recommend approval for the applicant to become a doctor. A funny hat is involved in the process. Usually, the candidate will organize a banquet called a “karonkka”. This is held right after the defense in honor of the opponent.

After completing the doctoral degree, graduates can apply for postdoctoral funding or a position provided they want to continue in the academia. Many go abroad for a year or two – until recently mobility to another country after finishing the PhD was mandatory for receiving postdoctoral funding from the Academy of Finland, and it is still greatly encouraged. Junior faculty positions, such as assistant professorships, are not common in philosophy in Finland, so postdocs need to establish a research profile so they could later apply for senior level positions. To that end, one must be successful in acquiring grants and producing international publications. The title of docent can be awarded to a candidate who advances from a junior scholar to a more advanced postdoctoral researcher.  In practice, docents should have publications that are equal to two doctoral dissertations. The most sought-after and competitive grants for postdocs are provided by the Academy of Finland and the European Research Council.

Perhaps internationally the most famous Finnish philosophers are Georg Henrik von Wright (1916–2003) and Jaakko Hintikka (1929–2015). von Wright was Ludwig Wittgenstein’s successor at Cambridge University, and contributed to philosophical logic, philosophy of action, and philosophy of science. von Wright is also well-known in the Nordic countries for his popular essays on ecological problems and the critique of techno-scientific progress. He was also one of Wittgenstein's closest friends. Helsinki currently hosts The von Wright and Wittgenstein Archives (WWA) which contain much of von Wright’s correspondence and personal library, including most of his published and unpublished writings, and an extensive Wittgenstein library. Hintikka contributed to mathematical and philosophical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, epistemology, and the history of philosophy. Both von Wright and Hintikka were featured in the series Library of Living Philosophers. An important figure from early 20^th Finnish philosophy was the Academician of Science Eino Kaila (1890-1958). Kaila visited the Vienna circle from the 1920s, and introduced what might broadly be called analytic philosophy to Finland. The first female philosophy professor in the Nordic countries was Raili Kauppi (1920-1995) who contributed to logic, especially intensional logic, and to Leibniz scholarship.

What is it like to be a philosopher in Italy?

This is the twenty-ninth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. 

This guest post is written by Chiara Russo Krauss, associate professor at Federico II University in Naples

1. General Information

Italy is a peninsula in the south of Europe, which extends in the Mediterranean Sea. Italy also has two big islands: Sicily and Sardinia. The Italian peninsula is separated from Northern Europe (France, Switzerland, and Austria) by the Alps mountain chain, whereas another mountain chain, the Apennines, runs from North to South along the peninsula. Given this geographical configuration, the climate – although generally temperate – changes drastically depending on whether you are in Northern or Southern Italy, on the coastline or in the mountains.

Italy has a population of roughly 60 million inhabitants. Rather than having a few big metropolises, Italy has many medium-size cities. Only three of them have more than one million inhabitants (Rome, Milan, Naples). Apart from the many cities that have from 50.000 to 500.000 inhabitants, there are also a lot of smaller towns and villages spread along the Italian territory, which is thus densely inhabited and highly anthropized. If you drive by car in any part of Italy, you won’t travel long before encountering another town.

What is it like to be a Philosopher (and Multidisciplinary Academic) in Yap, Federated States of Micronesia?

This is the twenty-eighth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. 

This guest post is written by Daniel S. Helman, Instructor at the College of Micronesia-FSM, Federated States of Micronesia, Education Division, Yap campus.

1. General Information

Yap is a small island in the Pacific Ocean near the Marianas Trench, not far from Guam, Palau and the Philippines. It sits adjacent to a related trench, the Yap Trench, and owes its existence to the folding and warping of the oceanic crust as it makes way for subduction. Yap is a high island, but lacks a central volcano. Instead, the tectonic forces pulled deep oceanic crust up to make way for the strong geometry that the subduction zone demands, much like darts in a pair of pants. The rock here is a mix of greenschist and other metamorphics along with a little basaltic rock and alluvium. It was never exploited for metals, like some islands in Melanesia nearby, and the geologic map shows some resources, e.g. some gold deposits and other metals, where economic return would not be guaranteed.

The island is small, only 100 square kilometers, and is in the western part of the Caroline Islands. To the west is Palau, and to the east are Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae and then the Marshall Islands. Along with Guam to the north, and the Northern Marianas Islands just north of Guam, these comprised the Trust Territory of the Pacific, administered by the United Nations for a time after World War II, and then by the United States. Interspersed among these larger islands are many smaller atolls, and many of these are inhabited. Ulithi atoll, for example, is about 150 km to the east of Yap, and was the staging area for the US WWII naval ships in the region, and departing en masse from here for battles, including in the Philippines, Okinawa and Japan. Ships would come back for repairs, refueling and rest. At the same time Yap was held by a Japanese administration, and visitors to Yap are treated with the twisted remains of US planes shot down in small skirmishes.

What is it like to be a philosopher in Norway?

This is the twenty-seventh installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. 

This guest post is written by Melina Duarte (Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy at UiT The Arctic University of Norway) and Tor Ivar Hanstad (Head of the Department of Philosophy at the UiT The Arctic University of Norway). 

A Norwegian landscape, picture by Tor Ivar. 

1. General Information

Norway is a narrow, but relatively long strip of coastal land on the Western side of the Scandinavian peninsula. In fact, if you could tip the country south around its southernmost point, the otherwise northernmost point of the Norwegian landmass would reach the Mediterranean. In addition to the mainland territory, the Islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are also counted as belonging to Norway. The nearest, and closest neighbor is Sweden, and the long eastern border is the longest border Norway share with any of its neighbors. To the south, and although separated by the Skagerrak sea, is Denmark, and in the north-east, Norway also shares borders with Finland and Russia. Topographically, Norway is characterized by her fjords and substantial archipelago running almost all the way to the north of the coastal line. In addition, in the major part of the country a mountain ridge stretches from the south and all the way up to the northernmost county. Norway offers exciting landscapes for visitors.

Although holding a relatively large territory, Norway is small country with regards to population: 5,3 million inhabitants. The population is concentrated in the southeastern region and especially in the capital Oslo (app 1 000 000 inhabitants). The whole country (apart from the mountains), however, is inhabited, and contrary to for example Sweden, in Norway one will find people living, although scattered, all over the mainland.

Norway did not reach the status of fully sovereign state until 1905. At first, Norway was in a union with Denmark lasting from 1521 to 1814 (often referred to as the 400-year night). In 1814, Norwegian politicians wrote and adopted the current constitution, declaring Norway as a sovereign state, and the date of signing, still remains the national day of Norway (17^th May). However, Norway still had to stay in a union for almost one more century – this time with Sweden. In 1905, the union with the latter came to an end, and since then, Norway has been a sovereign kingdom. The current line of kings (and soon, queens) was elected in 1905, and came from the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksberg. One significant consequence of the centuries Norway endured as a junior union partner with Denmark and Sweden, is that Norway never developed a strong aristocracy.

Norway is today one of the richest countries in the world. Although traditionally a relatively poor nation of farmers and fishermen, the discovery of oil off the coast in the south-western sea, meant that Norway enjoyed a rapid increase in income since the drilling started in the late 1960’s. One reason to the increase in wealth is due to the fact that Norway chose to establish her own public oil company as the main operator, as well as establishing a trust, where the surplus of the oil revenue has been, and still is, channeled to the people.

Politically, Norway is a democracy, and the King’s role is only ceremonial. The real power sits with the Parliament, and in Norway the parliamentarism practiced is the so-called negative parliamentarism, meaning that the Government does not have to leave as long as there is not a majority in the Parliament against it. After the end of WWII, Norway had several decades where the Labor party was in sole majority. Due to this, Norway is one of the most “social democratic” countries in the world with respect to income equality and welfare systems and leads the ranking of the gender equality index. Of course, helped by the oil revenue, Norwegians enjoy free education (including universities), free health care, and a highly advanced system of social welfare. Norway is regularly among the top countries in rankings of the best countries to live in (security, welfare, freedom and so on), and together with her Nordic neighbors (Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland) is also among the countries that enjoys the highest level of trust between citizens and between citizens and the Government.

Even though Norway for the most part shares the same cultural features as any other Western democracy, one specific Norwegian feature is worth mentioning, namely the high number of cabins and holiday homes (according to the latest figures, the number is 440,000). This is due to the strong interest in outdoor life among Norwegians, be it in the mountains or at sea. No doubt, Norway, with its large amount of easily accessible wilderness (mountains, forests) and long coastal line, is especially suited for having outdoor life as a major part of people’s leisure time.

2. Philosophy in Norway

Due to her relatively young age as a sovereign state, the Norwegian academic tradition is equally young, and publicly well-known philosophers do not enter the stage until the 20^th century. Here, two names stand out. The first is Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899-1990), who was a multitalented scholar who, in addition to academic work, also wrote theatre plays, fiction, poems, etc. He originally started as a jurist but switched to philosophy when he wrote his doctoral thesis. The thesis, titled On the Tragic situated Zapffe in the existentialist camp within philosophy, and the text is a grim and pessimistic outline of the future of humanity. The key argument is that humans, unlike any other living species we know, are unable to live in balance with nature. Hence, the success of humans will inevitably become the reason for its downfall once we overstretch the limits of the nature that we are dependent upon.

The second philosopher worthy a mention, is Arne Naess (1912-2009). Naess started his career as a classic logical positivist and was at one point affiliated with the Vienna circle. He was also the first professional philosopher who became publicly known in Norway and became full time Professor already at the age of 27. However, in his mid- and late career, Naess shifted the philosophical gaze towards environmental philosophy, and perhaps his most important work, is a book on what he labeled “ecosophy” or “deep ecology”. The book is, contrary to Zapffe’s pessimism, an attempt to show that an ecological alternative is still open to humanity if the species is willing to change to a more ecologically sustainable lifestyle. Hence, the best-known philosophers in Norway were, at least indirectly, concerned with environmental philosophy, and given their personal lifestyles as dedicated mountain climbers with a passion for outdoor life in the mountains, their philosophical orientation is not surprising.

Philosophy in Kazakhstan

This is the twenty-sixth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. 

This guest post is written by Vladimir Krstić, Philosophy Assistant Professor at Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. 

The first thing that comes to one’s mind when hearing the word ‘Kazakhstan’ is Borat. In reality, however, the first thought should be amazing job opportunities. Kazakhstan is a developing country but it is developing fast. The capital, formerly known as Astana but now Nur-Sultan, is growing faster than one can keep track of. This is a perfectly normal course of events. Kazakhstan is a young but vast country, the 9^th largest in the world in terms of physical size, with 18.5 million inhabitants. After a long period of being under the strong influence of Russia and the Soviet Union, Kazakhs are now re-discovering their language and national identity, and they are building their country according to their own preferences. The country is secular, multi-ethnic, and all religions are highly respected: Eastern Orthodox Christmas (7^th of January), for example, is a national holiday, even though the country is predominantly Muslim. Kazakhstan is rich in oil and gas and thus it can afford to attract a skilled labour force and provide them with exceptional work conditions. For these reasons, this country offers many possibilities for excellent employment, philosophers included. Most foreigners work in the oil and gas industry in the south of the country but a very nice job can be found in cities like Nur-Sultan and Almaty.

Being a philosopher in Sweden

This is the twenty-fifth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. 

This guest post is written by  Sofia Jeppsson, associate professor of philosophy at Umeå University (or Ubmeje Universitiähta in the local Sami language) in northern Sweden.

Sweden is a country in northern Europe and part of the European Union. The surface area is slightly smaller than Spain, slightly larger than the US state of California – still, only a little over ten million people live here. Originally, Sweden consisted of only the southern 1/3 of the present-day nation. In the fourteenth century, the Swedish crown decided to colonize the north, although this went very slowly until the seventeenth century when the colonization efforts picked up some speed. The crown wanted access to metals and other natural resources up north, and to convert the Sami population to Christianity (although somewhat unusually, they explicitly wanted a diversified economy with the Sami remaining hunters, fishermen and reindeer herders, while Swedes did agriculture and mining). When Norway became independent of Sweden in 1905, this led to further oppression of the Sami; many groups were forcibly relocated, creating legal conflicts about land rights between different Sami groups that persist to this day.

Nevertheless, after all this, roughly 90 % of the Swedish population still live in the southern 1/3 of the country. I did too, until I got my current position in 2018 and moved up north.

Sweden’s oldest universities are Uppsala University founded in 1477 followed by the University of Lund in 1666, both of which persist to this day and are among the biggest universities of the country. Most universities in Sweden are run by the government, and officially counts as government agencies.

Umeå University was founded by the Swedish government in 1965, with the aim of increasing the general educational level in the north. We differ from the big universities in the south in having lots of online courses and -teaching besides what we do on campus.

Higher education in Sweden is done in either a universitet or a högskola, although both institutions are often called universities in English. (Högskola literally translates to high school, but should not be confused with American high schools!) The distinction used to be that a högskola only provided bachelor and master’s degrees, whereas an universitet also offered doctoral degrees and was more research focused. The differences between högskola and universitet are getting increasingly blurred as time moves on, though.

If you’re accepted as a doctoral student in Sweden, the department will hire you with a monthly salary for up to five years (with some teaching and administrative work included). You also have benefits such as a long and paid parental leave if you have a child during grad school (regardless of gender). Another difference between Swedish academic jobs and those of many other countries is that we don’t really have a tenure-track system. You’re either hired for a fixed term, or hired permanently, in which case you have high job security. Permanent positions can be either as lektor or professor. The latter is only for people who are already far advanced and accomplished in their careers. My own job title is that of lektor; we who have permanent lektor jobs usually call ourselves associate professors in English (as I did in the beginning of this blog post). However, it’s also possible to be hired as a lektor for a limited period of time, like 6-12 months, when the university has need of an extra teacher; the lektor position is at bottom a teaching one, even though you have some time for research too.

After defending one’s PhD thesis in Sweden, people traditionally host a big dinner and party for colleagues, family and friends. I’ve talked to American colleagues who have been invited to some such event to serve as an opponent during the thesis defence, and attended the dinner and celebration afterwards, who compared it to a wedding dinner. I think it’s an apt comparison. People give toasts, hold speeches, and present gifts to the new PhD. Furthermore, although the details differ a bit from university to university, there’s often a big yearly ceremony in town for everyone who became a PhD during the year. The new PhD’s, wearing tailcoats or evening gowns, are crowned with laurel wreaths and given rolled up documents stating (in Latin) that one has now become a Doctor of Philosophy in the name of the King (well, there’s much more text than that, but I’m honestly not certain what it says since I can’t read Latin).

Being a Philosophy Teacher and Researcher in Ghana

This is the twenty-fourth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. 

This guest post is written by Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani (Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana).  

Ghana is a country of about 31 million people (although a new census is now under way that is expected to show a higher population). The country covers an area of 238,535 square kilometers, is bordered by Togo to the East, Cote d’Ivoire to the West, Burkina Faso to the North and the Atlantic Ocean to the South. It is the second most populous country in West Africa (after Nigeria) and its capital (Accra) is its largest city with a population of more than 2.5 million.

Ghana is home to a number of ethnic groups, and in precolonial times two powerful kingdoms, the Dagbon and the Ashanti, dominated the territory. The country was also prominent in the slave trade and has at least twelve slave forts to show for this. The Ashanti were noted for their military prowess and defeated the British in a number of battles before being defeated. Colonialism followed and Ghana gained independence in 1957, being the first in Africa.

Since independence, Ghana has maintained a reputation as one of the world’s moderately peaceful countries, ranking 2^nd in Africa and 38^th in the world in the Global Peace Index Report (as of June 2021). The country’s major problem is financial. Its current debt stands at 81.47% of the size of its economy, and its leaders continue to borrow. This has affected the income of public sector workers as government does not pay very much in salaries.

As at 2021, a PhD holder in a tertiary teaching job earns less than a thousand US dollars. Every year there are negotiations between university labour unions and government representatives, but the gains of such negotiations do not last long for workers due to inflation, forcing continuous negotiations. It is, however, a legacy of the country’s peaceful profile that these negotiations do not spill into aggressive confrontations, a stability also enjoyed by the country’s election disputes.

All of these mean that the work of a professional philosopher in Ghana is significantly constrained. In the country’s public universities, government maintains a tight cap on employment, preferring that those already employed do as much work as possible. As I write this essay, I carry a load of 36 teaching hours per week (9 courses/classes multiplied by 2 credit hours for each course/class and then multiplied by 2 meetings for each class per week). The financial crunch and a few other factors have led to the exit of a good number of foreign faculty members. The enjoyable part is that the students are nice, intelligent, and considerate.

The biggest casualty in all of this is research, as the teaching load leaves neither enough time nor energy for it. However, we still get some research done. My focus has been on deliberative democracy, particularly consensual democracy (an area in which I have published more than twenty articles and book chapters). This focus has attracted some bit of global interest toward me, as I generate original research on the structures, mechanisms and problems of reaching group consensus decisions.

What is it like to be a philosopher in Japan?

This is the twenty-third installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. 

This guest post is written by Katsunori Miyahara (lecturer at the Center for Human Nature, AI, and Neuroscience at Hokkaido University) and Kengo Miyazono (associate professor of philosophy at Hokkaido University). 

1. General information

Japan is an island country in East Asia with a total population of about 126 million. The country long retained a feudal system before undergoing a rapid modernization process at the end of the 19th century, when a historic event known as Meiji Restoration took place and the Tokugawa Shogunate––the last military government which dictated the country for almost 400 years––was replaced by the new Meiji Government.  A modern education system, heavily influenced by European (especially French) and American systems, was introduced to the country in the same period. This involved the foundation of the oldest modern national university in Japan, The University of Tokyo, in 1877.

Currently, higher education in Japan is provided primarily––though not exclusively––by universities and junior colleges. Unlike many other countries, the Japanese school calendar starts in April and ends in March. Typically, the first semester runs from April to July (or early August), which is followed by the summer holiday, and the second semester resumes in October and ends in February.

There is a winter break between the end of December and the second week of January, which many regard as the New Year’s holiday rather than the Christmas break. In a standard undergraduate program, students have 4 years to graduate from a university and 2 years to graduate from a junior college. For postgraduate education, standard Master programs are designed to be completed in 2 years and Doctoral programs in 3 years. In philosophy, however, it is not uncommon for students to extend their period and spend much longer than this in graduate school (or at least, it was common for students to remain in graduate school for long periods until about 5-10 years ago).

2. Philosophy in Japan

Western philosophy was properly introduced to Japan in the latter half of the 19th century when the country was forced to open its border to foreign countries after adopting the isolationist “closed country” policy for over two centuries.

Although philosophical thinking was not entirely foreign to the Japanese intellectuals before this, the modern term for philosophy, tetsugaku (哲学), which roughly translates as “the learning of the sages” in letter, was a neologism coined during this period by the progressive Enlightenment scholar Nishi Amane (西周, 1829–1877) (Maraldo 2019). Nishi and other scholars of this period also coined new terminologies for a variety of Western philosophical terms, such as kansei (感性, “sensibility”), kinou (帰納, “induction”), en-eki (演繹, “deduction”), kan-nen (観念, “idea”), and gainen (概念, “concept”).

Many of the terms coined during this period are still in use in contemporary philosophical discourse and some have even made their way into the common lexicon. Outgoing from this introductory phase, Japanese philosophy reached its first peak in the beginning of the 20th century as it produced original thinkers such as Nishida Kitaro (西田幾多郎, 1870-1945), Watsuji Tetsuro (和辻哲郎, 1889-1960), and Kuki Shuzo (九鬼周造, 1888-1941). But, instead of presenting the historical development of 20th-century Japanese philosophy––readers interested should look into the SEP entry on Japanese Philosophy (Kasulis 2019) and The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy (Davis 2019)––let us skip a century or so of development and describe the contemporary situation of philosophy in Japan. 

 

Being a Philosopher in the Philippines

This is the twenty-second installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. This guest post is written by Rowena Azada-Palacios, currently on leave from her post as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Ateneo de Manila University. She is currently based in England with her husband and two children. She is completing her PhD in Philosophy of Education at University College London, where she is also a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant.

The Philippines is an archipelago in Southeast Asia, south of Taiwan and east of Vietnam. Its 100 million inhabitants speak more than 180 languages, but because of half a century of colonization by the United States in the first half of the 20th century, English is one of its official languages, and is the main language of instruction in higher education, as well as the main language of law and business. The country’s culture has also been influenced by 300 years of colonization by Spain from the 16th to the 19th century, making Christianity the most dominant religion.

The oldest existing university in the Philippines is the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas in Manila (or University of Santo Tomas for short), founded by the Catholic Dominican order in 1611, and many of the universities in the country, including many of the top-ranked ones, were similarly founded by Catholic religious orders during the Spanish colonial period. In the early 20th century, however, all universities began to restructure in line with the American model of higher education, and the American influence on higher education remains strong today.

Today, the Philippines has around 2,000 higher education institutions that offer 4-year bachelor’s degree programs. Around 15% of these are public, and the rest are private. For a higher education institution in the Philippines to be classified as a ‘university’ rather than a ‘college’, it must fulfill a number of preconditions, including offering at least two doctoral programs. A parallel set of preconditions must be met for a state-run institution to be classified as a ‘local university’, including the offering of at least two graduate-level (including master’s level) programs. As of 2021, fourteen Philippine universities are part of the QS World University Rankings list of top 650 universities in Asia.

To my knowledge, five universities in the Philippines offer doctoral programs in philosophy; these are Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University Manila, the University of the Philippines (in its Diliman campus in Quezon City), the University of Santo Tomas, and the University of San Carlos. The first four are all in Metro Manila, the Philippine capital, whereas the University of San Carlos is in Cebu City. The specializations of these philosophy departments differ from each other. The University of the Philippines-Diliman is strong in the analytic tradition. Ateneo de Manila’s strength is in continental philosophy. The University of Santo Tomas has strengths in both Catholic philosophy and continental philosophy. However, all of these departments have a mix of philosophers from different traditions and with different areas of expertise, and East Asian philosophy is becoming one area of growing interest among younger philosophers. These five institutions all offer visiting professorships, and some actively hire visiting professors each year. Although four of these five universities (except the University of the Philippines) were originally founded by Catholic religious orders, faculty members do not need to be Catholic to teach at them.

Other departments around the country offer BA Philosophy and MA Philosophy programs. BA Philosophy is a popular pre-law program among undergraduates, and is offered by universities in many of the major cities across the country. Students who take the MA Philosophy are often seeking an academic career in philosophy and intend to pursue a doctorate later on, or intend to teach philosophy at seminaries. Since 2013, philosophy has become a required subject in high school, and some students who intend to teach philosophy at senior high school take an MA in Philosophy, or take master’s courses in philosophy alongside a graduate degree in education.

Beyond these universities, opportunities to teach philosophy at the higher education level are also numerous, for those inclined towards a teaching-oriented career. The Philippines has a mandatory general education (GE) curriculum that all undergraduate students must undergo, and one of the mandatory courses is ethics, which is typically taught from a philosophical perspective. Many Catholic universities also have additional philosophy requirements for its undergraduate students. (At Ateneo de Manila, for example, all undergraduate students must take three philosophy classes, each of which is the equivalent of three American credits.) Because of these mandatory courses, most philosophy departments also act as service departments (that is, departments mandated to teach GE courses to students based in other departments), even when they offer their own philosophy degree programs.

The teaching load of philosophers in the Philippines thus tends to be heavy, relative to the load of tenured philosophers in the UK and the US. Even at the top-ranked universities (which have relatively lighter teaching loads than others), most philosophers usually teach at least 4 classes per semester, with 3 contact hours per week class, or a total of 12 hours of classroom teaching per week. (At other universities the teaching load can be as much as double this.) Each of these classes is likely to have around 30 students. (The lecture/seminar system, whereby lectures are given to large groups of students, and seminars are conducted with smaller discussion groups, is not commonly used in philosophy.) Because philosophy departments are usually service departments, it is often the case that these classes are the same course (e.g., all Ethics classes, or three Ethics classes, plus one specialist philosophy class for students in the philosophy program), so the philosopher may only have to work on one or two preparations per semester despite the high number of classroom contact hours. Visiting professors will usually be asked to teach to their strength.

Because of the heavy teaching load, the research demands as a precondition for tenure (called “permanency” in the Philippines) tend to be lower than in the UK and the US. Although research output is a requirement for promotion, there is typically less pressure to produce high volumes of research as a requirement for permanency. Philippine labor laws also prohibit the retention of full-time academics without permanency beyond three years; after three years, the institution must either grant the academic permanency, or let them go. As a result, philosophers tend to be granted permanency relatively early in their academic careers.

What is it like to work as a philosopher in South Korea?

This is the twenty-first installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. After a brief hiatus, we are very pleased to start this series again and we hope to basically keep going. If you live in a non-anglophone country and work as a philosopher in higher education, and would like to be featured, please get in touch.

This guest post is written by Natalja Deng who is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Underwood International College, Yonsei University, Seoul/Incheon, South Korea. 

South Korea is a pretty amazing place. It’s got a fascinating history, a vibrant ancient and contemporary culture, a great standard of living, and a language that’s difficult but also rather fun to try to learn. I’ve lived here for four years and I’ve barely scratched the surface of all there is to discover.

SK’s population is around 52 million. Of these, 25 million live in the Seoul Capital Area, which comprises Seoul itself (10 million), Incheon (second syllable rhymes with ‘won’), and Gyeonggi Province. The number of expats is relatively small but steadily rising; in 2019, there were 2.5 million. SK has one of the largest American expat populations (over 100,000).

About half the population is affiliated with a religion; most are Christian (about 28%) or Buddhist (about 15%). Apparently, Shamanism (a set of practices based on the belief that the natural world is animated by spirits) also continues to exert an influence, though my only first-hand experience of this has been hearing Shamanism-related chanting while hiking on Inwangsan, one of the many, lovely mountains/hills in and around Seoul. Confucianism’s influence, on the other hand, is tangible. A form of Confucianism was the state ideology during the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) and it has left numerous traces in Korean society.

One legacy of Confucianism is a strong emphasis on education. This includes an intense focus on exam results and getting into what are perceived to be the best universities. The university entrance exam (‘suneung’) is famously exhausting to prepare for. High-school students typically study round the clock for months or even years. More generally, competition is a facet of many aspects of life in Korea.

Being philosopher in Serbia

This is the twentieth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West.

This guest post is written by  Ljiljana Radenovic, who is Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. Her main research interests fall into the field of philosophy and history of cognitive science, philosophy of psychology, history of emotions, and developmental psychology.

Let me start with a couple of words about myself. I did my undergraduate degree in Belgrade, Serbia. I continued graduate studies at York University in Toronto, Canada where I got my degree. Before landing an academic job in Belgrade and returning to Serbia I kept applying to a number of North American teaching jobs and I experienced the dread of job interviews at the Eastern APA. I was lucky enough to get one two-year postdoc and some courses to teach at York University after my PhD defense. In what follows I will do my best to highlight the most striking similarities and differences between life of an academic philosopher in North America and the one in Serbia.

A few words about the country

Serbia is a small country of about seven million people on the Balkan peninsula. In the twentieth century it was part of Yugoslavia, a socialist country that was not a member of the Soviet Eastern Block. Yugoslavia broke to pieces in the wars of the 1990s. Nowadays, some twenty years later the impact of the wars is still felt. The economy never sufficiently recovered while the country’s progress to become a member of the European Union is at a stand-still with many obstacles still ahead. But living in a country in the Balkans has its own advantages. The general mood is relaxed even among academics. People,  including philosophy professors, are willing to go for a coffee at a very short notice. There is no need to plan social events many weeks ahead. In fact, such events spontaneously happen every day in one of the local cafes near departmental building.

Job market

Serbia has three major departments of philosophy, at three different Universities: Belgrade, Novi Sad, and Niš. The only official teaching language at the undergraduate level is Serbian, so jobs are not advertized internationally. Although Serbia is not a big country and philosophy is not a big discipline the market is still tight. There are essentially new job openings only when a full professor retires. In Serbia retirement is mandatory so at least occasionally there is an open spot for a younger academic.

The road to tenure is long. To get a tenure you need to be a full professor and it takes 10 years to get there. So, the position of an associate professor does not provide unconditional job security. However, once you get a job at the level of an assistant professor, unless there is some major upheaval, it is expected that you go more or less smoothly from assistant to full professorship. Still, in order to do that you need a number of publications, administrative duties, and excellence in teaching demonstrated at every level. There is also an option to renew the contract at the level of assistant or associate professor, but such renewal prolongs the road to tenure for additional 5 or more years.

The philosophy profession in Israel

This is the nineteenth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. Today's entry is by Dr. Samuel Lebens, Research Fellow at the University of Haifa.  

 

Israel is a country of approximately 9 million citizens. Roughly 75% of the population is Jewish, and roughly 25% are Arabs. Both of those communities are host to tremendous cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity.

Roughly a quarter of the Jewish population are religiously observant, and that, in itself, spans a range from ultra-Orthodoxy to Modern-Orthodoxy. The Jewish population, more generally, is host to distinct ethnic communities: Moroccan, Yemenite, Persian, Ethiopian, Eastern European, Western-European, and more.

 

The Arabic population is host to Bedouin, Muslim, Christian, and Druze communities, and more. All of this is focusing only on Israeli citizens, and not on the many Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation.

 

I imagine that any population with this much diversity will likely be witness to all sorts of internal tensions, and Israel is no exception. There are tensions between religious and secular Jews, between Eastern and Western Jews, between Jews and Arabs, between Muslims and Christians, between Arabs who identify as Israeli (with many Druze and Bedouins, in particular, serving in the Israeli army) and Arabs who identify as Palestinians with Israeli citizenship (who are exempt from serving in the Israeli army). There are also pronounced political tensions between the Israeli right, and the often beleaguered Israeli left. For about a year, we haven't had a functioning government, since the various parties are too divided to form a coalition.

 

And yet, this context of tension and conflict can often make Israel a very rewarding place in which to teach University level philosophy. I teach in the university of Haifa, which is perhaps Israel's most ethnically diverse university, with roughly 40% of our student body coming from the Arab community of Israel.

What it is like to be a philosopher in Turkey

This is the eighteenth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. Today's entry is by Dr. Saniye Vatansever, Assistant Professor at Bilkent University. 

Disclaimer: I am a Turkish woman who taught in several English-medium public and private universities in Turkey. Hence I will write from a particular point of view (I might be positively biased towards the country) and only about English-medium universities in Turkey. I assume the reader of this piece is a foreigner who might seek employment in one of the English-medium universities in Turkey. Even though the title reads as “What it is like to be a philosopher in Turkey”, the main objective of this piece is to inform potential foreigner job candidates, who have no (or very little) knowledge about the country and/or the academic atmosphere they might join in. That is why I will focus on what I take to be some of the best and worst aspects of being a philosopher in an English-medium university in Turkey.

Advantages of being a philosopher in Turkey

Beautiful country, good food, nice people: Turkey is a very vibrant and beautiful country with rich history and diverse culture, delicious cuisine, and hospitable people. Every region has its unique culture, historical and natural sightseeing sides and traditional delicious meals and deserts (yes, baklava is Turkish!). Due to its geographical location, one can also easily travel to other European and Asian countries for touristic and academic purposes. And if you are a cat or a dog person, this is the country for you as there are street cats and dogs everywhere. It is not uncommon to see cat and dog food left at the corners of the streets for them. I would recommend you to see the documentary called Kedi (cat in Turkish), if you haven’t already.

What is it like to be a philosopher in Costa Rica?

This is the seventeenth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. Today's entry is by Dr. Laurencia Sáenz Benavides, Invited Professor at the School of Philosophy or the University of Costa Rica Twitter: @laurenciasaenz  

In Costa Rica, philosophy is taught in the last year of high school. It is the State-funded universities, however, which constitute the backbone of the country’s philosophical profession (organization of conferences, academic publications, and formation of philosophy teachers). 

In the spirit of the Cordoba University Reform in 1918, public universities in Costa Rica are autonomous. They are also State-funded by Constitutional mandate, but in the last few decades there have been consistent disagreements between the successive Governments and university authorities, the latter decrying a chronic funding failure. Successive governments have failed to provide the required 1.5% of the GNP, which is destined for Higher Education. Within Universities there are, as elsewhere, strong criticisms of dramatic salary gaps between Vice-chancellors, Administrative and Academic Staff.   

The School of Philosophy of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) has in many ways functioned as the gravitational centre of the profession within the country. This may be partly due to the fact that the University of Costa Rica, founded in 1940, was the first academic space where the study of philosophy became formally institutionalized. According to the philosopher Alexander Jiménez Matarrita, the main architect of what he calls the Costa Rican “philosophical institutionality” was Constantino Láscaris, a Spanish philosopher who migrated to the Central American country in the mid 1950’s. Láscaris actively pushed for the creation of the Costarican Association of Philosophy and promoted the foundation of the UCR’s philosophy Journal, Revista de Filosofía, as well as other public Higher-Education institutions, such as the Universidad Nacional (UNA) and the Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica (ITCR). 

UCR’s School of Philosophy offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Most teaching is offered in Spanish, but in recent years some optional modules are taught in English.The predominant tradition is what we might loosely refer to as “Western Philosophy”. 

Philosophy also has an important presence at the Escuela de Estudios Generales, where it is taught together with other areas of the Humanities, and at the Sede de Occidente of the UCR, located in San Ramón, Alajuela. The philosophy department of the Universidad Nacional (UNA), founded in 1975, also offers undergraduate degrees in philosophy, a Masters in Bioethics and a Postgraduate programme in Latin-American studies. Apart from these institutions, philosophy is also taught at the School of Languages and Social Sciences of the Technological Institute of Costa Rica (ITCR).   

There are decent research opportunities within the Philosophy Departments of State-funded universities. These, however, are primarily accessible to tenured staff. In general, a heavy teaching load and an increasing amount of bureaucratic work – and precarious working conditions faced by untenured teaching staff – are the main obstacles for doing research. Although each Department can allocate some research-time to its academic staff, there’s an increasing tendency to look for external funding – which, according to professor Sergio Rojas Peralta, works de facto as a form of privatisation of research.  

Alongside teaching and research, a core element of Costa Rican Public Universities is “Acción Social” (Community Service), the area that seeks to contribute to effecting the social “transformations needed for the improvement of the quality of life in the country”. This area is however largely neglected by philosophers, according to professor Kattya Arroyo. In Arroyo’s view, “philosophers have stopped dialoguing among themselves and with Costa Rican society”. Unsurprisingly, it is women academics who overwhelmingly engage in community service, which, according to sociologist Dr. Isabel Gamboa Barboza, is configured as a less prestigious area in the University, and with the lowest possibilities for work-promotion. 

A relatively high number of students are enrolled, but often less out of an interest in philosophy itself, than in a bid to get a place, with the prospect of being able to change tack in the future (students need to pass an exam in order to be admitted to university, and some degrees require higher marks than others). This means that many of them are not interested in the lectures, which correlates to a high termly drop-out. 

Systemic exclusions: philosophy is not innocent

We do not have hard data on how the student body is constituted in terms of gender, class, race and other variables, and we lack a qualitative study allowing us to assess how minority students feel about their experience in philosophy departments, but I think it is generally agreed that the majority of the student body in philosophy departments – as well as of the teaching staff – is white/mestizo and male. As an example, in the UCR’s Philosophy Postgraduate programme, only 4 women are enrolled, contra nearly 40 men. In some Departments, female students have informally complained to members of staff about persistent instances of sexism and misogyny coming from professors as well as from male students. 

In all Philosophy Departments here, most if not all Senior Professors (Profesor Catedrático) are male. 

Most women are currently hired in untenured teaching positions. Thus Costa Rica’s philosophical profession suffers from the same endemic problems of exclusion of minorities that characterize most Philosophy Departments in Western Academia. 

What is it like to be a philosopher in Taiwan?

This is the sixteenth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West, written by Lynn (Hsien-I) Chiu and translated and edited by Lynn (Chien-Hui) Chiu. 

Author: Lynn (Hsien-I) Chiu is a Taiwanese public philosopher. She has earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degree in philosophy (focus: philosophy of biology) from Taiwan and was a postdoc there for four years. She taught as an adjunct for five years and was a visiting scholar at Duke University, USA. For the past five years, she’s been promoting philosophy to the Tauwanese public at Philosophy Medium.

Editor and translator: Lynn (Chien-Hui) Chiu is a Taiwanese philosopher of biology. She was part of a philosophy research group before leaving the country to complete a PhD/MA in philosophy at University of Missouri, USA, a fellowship in Austria, and a three-year postdoc in France. She is currently based in Vienna, working part-time as an interdisciplinary communications consultant while co-running the Philosophy of Science Communication network.

This piece was written by Lynn (Hsien-I) Chiu in Chinese and translated & edited by Lynn (Chien-Hui) Chiu into English. The following preserves Lynn-the-author’s point of view while Lynn-the-editor occasionally interjects. 

What is it like for a Westerner to live in Taiwan? 

Taiwan is an island nation with a population of 23 million. There is a long and complicated story to tell about the nation’s difficult international status, but the focus here is what it is like to live, teach, and do philosophy in Taiwan. Given my experience at Duke University, aside from differences in language and culture, the Taiwanese way of life is not that different from life in an US city. Taiwan is a multi-ethnic nation quick to accept, adopt, and adapt to foreign cultures and fresh perspectives, actively assimilating them into new, constitutive parts of Taiwanese culture. In my experience, Western friends and visiting scholars have unanimously praised the hospitality and politeness of the Taiwanese--to a fault as the kindness can be a bit overwhelming! Western comfort food is easy to find. Overall, Taiwan is a comfortable place for Western philosophers to visit and live: one can enjoy the pleasures of an exotic place while staying within their comfort zones (Editor: English is a mandatory foreign language and people are always eager to converse. The only trick to getting along is to always, always compliment the food!).

What is the state of philosophy in Taiwan?

Taiwan may be small, but we have 160 universities and 13 departments of philosophy. Taiwanese philosophy inherited an early Chinese focus in Confucianism, with contemporary Neo-Confucianism peaking between the 1950s and 80s. Yet with the introduction of Western philosophy in the 80s, Confucianism gradually lost its hold. A wave of young scholars returning from graduate studies in the UK, US, and Europe brought international academic trends to Taiwan. This new generation of philosophers, trained in Western philosophy, taught and raised further generations of philosophers to follow their footsteps, i.e., to pursue doctoral studies abroad (which has now expanded to include Australia, Canada, etc.) and return to Taiwan to teach.

Western philosophy has now gained a strong foothold in Taiwan and continues to rise in prominence while Eastern and Chinese philosophy seem to fail to attract new students and scholars. The 2019 Ministry of Science and Technology survey of academic philosophy shows that scholars specializing in Chinese philosophy now make up about a third of the total faculty. Within Western philosophy, there is broad interest and expertise in the mainstream fields of continental philosophy, analytic philosophy, philosophy of science, political philosophy, ethics and moral philosophy, philosophy of mind, as well as specialized areas such as philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology and scientific practice, etc.

(Editor: Interestingly, new interdisciplinary research programs that organically integrate philosophy (of mind and cognition or philosophy of science, for instance) and the sciences (neuroscience or immunology, for instance) have sprouted rather independently of the philosophy community.) 

In my opinion, Taiwanese philosophy has, in a sense, been “colonized” by Western philosophy: research questions in philosophy are usually framed as responses to the Western canon. In the last decade, though, Taiwanese scholars are increasingly interested in establishing their own subjectivity and a uniquely “Taiwanese” philosophy. A “decolonized” Taiwan is not a return to Chinese philosophy but the development of autonomous research lines and proactive interactions with the West (instead of passively transmitting philosophy from the West) as well as the East (with neighbors such as Korea, Japan, Malaysia, China, etc.). The geographical location and Westernized environment of Taiwan make it a node for “West meets East” and Pan-Asian activities, such as the Asia-Pacific Philosophy of Science Association (APPSA). 

What about the state of women in philosophy?

The same 2019 survey by the Ministry of Science and Technology revealed that there are 33 female professors of philosophy, about a quarter of the total professorship. Of the 2000 undergraduate majors and post-graduate students, 44% are women (47.01% of undergraduate majors and 40.87% of the post-graduate population). 

The results are surprising for both of us (author and editor). In the author’s experience, philosophy is a female-dominated major but very few continue to pursue graduate studies. During her PhD, she was often the only woman in graduate seminars. The editor was a teaching assistant for philosophy undergraduates and the classrooms were indeed primarily female. Based on our conjecture that philosophy is often thought of as a “soft” humanities discipline in Taiwan, the expectation was that survey results will reflect our experiences: undergraduate majors would be predominantly female while graduate programs overwhelmingly male. That neither was the case in 2019 hopefully reflects the progress made in the past decade to make philosophy better known and inclusive. 

What is the job market like in Taiwan?

It is competitive with few faculty positions available, but since the positions are not easily accessible for non-native speakers, the source of competition stems largely from within (Editor: but it is possible to become a faculty in Taiwan without the ability to speak Mandarin Chinese). Having international experience and degrees as well as an impressive publication list is a major plus. It is always helpful to have strong local connections and networks to beat the odds. The Taiwanese education system is currently suffering from a low birth rate crisis. As overall student numbers continue to drop, universities are closing departments and shutting down majors, axing those with low enrollment first. As is the case in most countries, philosophy is not a popular major among students. Therefore, local, Taiwanese PhD degree holders are faced with a harsh job market as the market shrinks but still favors holders of Western PhDs.

That being said, philosophy is becoming increasingly popular in general society. The 2014 student-led political movement (the “Sunflower Student Movement”) and new educational reforms gave the younger generation a strong sense of autonomy and desire for critical thinking as well as a more liberal arts-leaning education. Public philosophers are rising in popularity across all types of media, and more and more philosophy majors are considering or taking up public philosophy as a profession (see below for a list of main initiatives). As far as I know, this is not a uniquely Taiwanese phenomenon. The US society, for instance, also craves philosophy and many PhDs are leaving the academy to teach and promote philosophy outside of the university. There should be increasing recognition in the academy that public philosophy is a fruitful career path for philosophy PhDs and a solution to the employment crisis in philosophy.

The culture in philosophy departments is also changing as they fight for survival. Many adapt by taking a pragmatic turn, offering attractive courses in applied philosophy (e.g., business, medical, and AI ethics, philosophy of mental health and aging) or collaborating with the booming “cultural and creative industry” to produce creative educational and civic training materials for the public. Logic and critical reasoning popular books and courses are particularly in demand. Unfortunately, these efforts do not translate into academic employment opportunities for early-career scholars. 

What is it like to teach and research in Taiwan? 

Editor: Research-wise, public universities are more prestigious than private ones. In addition to university faculty positions, researchers can apply for positions at the Academia Sinica, the national academy of Taiwan equivalent to Max Planck Institutes or the CNRS. Postdocs are available in many departments, but mostly funded by grants. Research is published in local or cross-strait Chinese journals and major English outlets. Workshops, summer schools, conferences, etc., are well-connected with international communities and often held in English. Relatedly, many departments encourage teaching in English and upper-level readings are usually in English (except for Chinese philosophy).

Teaching-wise, Taiwanese universities, like the US, are 4-year undergraduate programs. Unlike the US, students need to go through a 2-4 year master’s program before they can start their doctoral studies.  (Editor: Application channels are much more diverse than a decade ago, but generally students enroll into university by first taking an universal exam that determines their overall rank. Highly ranked students choose their major and university first. The rest then pick what’s left based on their rank order. Philosophy is usually not a first choice, but philosophy majors at prestigious universities are still favored over popular majors in low-ranking universities.)

Compared to students in the Western world, Taiwanese students are passive and timid. They do not tend to ask questions in the classroom and are less inclined to engage in independent, critical thinking. It is rewarding, however, as one will always have students enthusiastic about philosophy. Overall, being a philosopher in Taiwan can be a very enjoyable experience (minus the tedious administrative duties). (Editor: “West” usually refers to North American students, who are more outspoken and proactive compared to their reserved European counterparts. Taiwanese students are quiet mostly out of consideration for other students and expect themselves to "do their homework" first before speaking up. They also tend to trust and defer to authority. This is a cultural disposition Westerns should know before judging “shy” international students.) 

What does the general public think of philosophy?

In our experience, the public holds a negative attitude towards philosophy as a major. Common beliefs include “philosophy is for weirdos,” “philosophers will starve on the streets,” “philosophers are depressed and wallow in self-inflicted worries,” etc. In general, the public does not understand what it means to study philosophy and do not know what it is to engage in abstract argumentation. 

But with the rise of public philosophy in popular media, attitudes are changing. Popular organizations such as Cafe Philo/Philosophy on Friday (哲學星期五) and Philosophical Education Development Organization (PHEDO) (高中哲學推廣協會), businesses such as Philosophy Medium (哲學新媒體) and Watchout Talk Philosophy (烙哲學), public intellectuals and philosophers including Kris Chu Chia-An and Chou Wei-hang, public programs such as the video series 哲學談，淺淺地 and award-winning radio program PHEDO Café (哲學Café), and a wide variety of local "philosophy salons" are driving public curiosity and interest in philosophy. Compared to the relatively listless student body in the university, philosophy instructors are coming to realize that bringing philosophy to the public presents them with a far more passionate and attentive audience.

The author, editor, and many philosophers who have contributed to this piece conclude that philosophy in Taiwan is a dynamic melting pot of Eastern/Chinese Philosophy, Western Philosophy, and science-related philosophy, bubbling with new collaborations and insights while bursting from boundary tensions. Public philosophy is popular and holds great opportunities for philosophers. We look forward to seeing how Taiwanese subjectivity will develop as philosophers navigate their rich, diverse milieu in and out of academia. 

Acknowledgment and Supplementary Materials

Many thanks to Dr. Shiu-Ching Wu for pointing us to statistical resources and Dr. Ruey-Lin Chen for the commentaries and for bringing us together. We are very thankful for extensive comments from Dr. Chia-Hua Lin as well as helpful conversations and input from Dr. Hsiao-Fan Yeh, Dr. Ying-Tung Lin, Dr. Tony H. Y. Cheng, and Dr. Shen-Yi Liao.

Sources: 

• Number of universities as of 2018 October 15
• Number of philosophy departments
• Statistics on academic researchers
• Number of student and faculty
• Excel sheet created by the author

What is like to be a philosopher in Panama?

This is the 15th installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. This is a guest contribution by Ruling Barragán, Adjunct professor of philosophy at the Universidad de Panamá.

 

Country Profile.

 

The Republic of Panama is a small Spanish-speaking country (about 4 millions inhabitants, 75,000 square kilometers) within the Central American geographical region. Culturally speaking, it is more related to Afro-Caribbean and Colombian culture than to Central American countries. For instance, its food and music have been influenced by Afro-Caribbean cuisine and folklore, while its legal and political culture is heir to its history with Colombia (Panama was a Federal State within the 'Gran Colombia' in the second half of the 19th century).  Panamanian history has also been particularly influenced by the US, in a unique manner within the region, as part of Panama's territory (that surrounding the Panama Canal) was actually a US colony.  Panama achieved complete independence from the US in the year 2000, not without tensions, conflicts and even a military invasion (1989) throughout its history with the North American nation.  Nevertheless, on the whole, Panama has never been foe to the US.  Friendly relations have prevailed between both countries.

 

Culture/philosophy profile

 

To begin with, it should be said that Panama does not have a significant influence in the history of Latin American philosophy comparable to countries like Mexico, Peru and/or Argentina.  There has been an important continuity of the Western philosophical tradition in these countries and some will argue (Enrique Dussel, for instance), even an outstanding non-Western, pre-colonial philosophical tradition.  Whatever be the case, most of Latin American 20th century philosophy has flourished under the influence of late 19th century and early 2oth century European philosophy.  The analytic tradition has been for the most part non-existent in Latin America until (more or less) the middle of the 20th century.  However, there was a prominent positivist tradition (especially in Argentina and Brazil) way before there was an interest along the lines of the Analytical tradition.  This positivist tradition (that goes back to the French philosopher Auguste Comte) influenced especially the legal profession and the political institutions that constituted most of our countries.  Panama was no exception to that.  Its most prominent legal and political thinker, Don Justo Arosemena (1817-1896) was influenced by that culture in his writings.  However outstanding as a political and legal thinker of the Panamanian nation, he cannot be considered, in the academic, professional sense of the word, a philosopher.  Neither that is needed.

 

Being a philosopher in Brazil

This is the 14th installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. This is a guest contribution by Nastassja Pugliese, Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Education at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. 

From its lavish biodiversity to the inexhaustible variety of its cultural and ethnic expressions, Brazil is a country where diversity abounds. One exception to this rule lies in the relative unity of the structure of the public system of education across the country. In this post, I will try to show what is it like to be a philosopher in Brazil.

Brazil is a country where access to higher education is a constitutional right^[1]. The fact that higher education is a constitutional right makes Brazilian public universities key actors in structuring Brazilian society. The idea behind the law is that by allowing and guaranteeing access of citizens from all social classes to good institutions of higher education, democracy is strengthened. Under this national policy, the quality of all universities is periodically evaluated by a central federal council (CAPES) and governments sponsor research either through the federal agency for national development (CNPQ) or state foundations for research support (FAPs). This means that most of the teaching and almost all highly specialised research done in Brazilian universities as well as almost every penny employed to run the academic machinery in public universities comes from tax money (either from a federal or a state budget).

Now take a moment to imagine the size of Brazil. With a continental dimension, Brazil has 26 states (and 1 federal district), but it counts 69 federal universities with elite institutions ranked among the best in the world. Its educational system, to be more accurate, is mixed, which means that public institutions (state or federally funded) coexist with private institutions (which can be either for-profit or not-for-profit like the Catholic universities). Now imagine the economic potential of its higher education system if the public sector moved to a for-profit system where education is no longer understood as a right but as a privileged for those who can afford. This has been a permanent threat but today, more than ever before, the public education system is on the razor’s edge.

I will not expose these difficulties here because the particularities of the Brazilian educational experience are so rich and positive that it will do more good if I tell you about the impressive and (I think) exemplar politics of higher education that has been in place for decades.

My report may sound outdated given the current tensions, but the fact is that the public system is still a reality and those that benefit from it do hope that it does not ever become extinct. My report may also sound too optimistic and unproblematic, but this is a conscious choice. I’ll leave the particular - and more complex - problems for another opportunity. I will divide my post in three sections: the upbringing of an academic, the job market, and the life after securing a job. I am not going to talk about my personal experiences but only describe the structure of the educational system in all those stages. I also chose to ignore intersectional variables (problems related to class, race, and gender) here even knowing how important they are for grasping the whole picture.

Philosophy in Iceland

This is the thirteenth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. This is a guest contribution by Finnur Dellsén, Associate Professor at the University of Iceland.

The first thing to say about Iceland concerns its size. With a population of around 380,000, around 250,000 of which live in or near the capital, Reykjavik, the opportunities for philosophers who want to work in Iceland are inevitably rather limited. My guess is that the total number of philosophers employed at Icelandic universities is around 20 to 30, although there of course many more philosophers working elsewhere in Icelandic society – including in high school, publishing, and the media. Most academic philosophers work at the University of Iceland, located in Reykjavik, which is by far the largest university and the only one that offers a full-time studies in philosophy.

The structure of Icelandic academia has been influenced by the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden) in several respects. A student‘s first university degree is normally a three-year Bachelor degree, followed by a two-year Masters degree, and a doctoral degree which is official three years (but usually takes longer to complete in practice). Most Icelandic universities, including the University of Iceland, are run by the state, and they are almost exclusively financed by taxation rather than by student tuition. Thus, one‘s entire university education is more-or-less free and accessible regardless of one‘s financial situation.

For those who are interested in doing philosophy for a living, the difficult part is getting an academic job once you have finished studying for your PhD. Even those who have studied abroad at prestigious universities and published in top journals usually cannot expect to secure a permanent position in Iceland until 10 to 15 years after graduating. Unfortunately, it is also quite difficult to secure postdoctoral positions and other temporary research positions in Iceland, so many philosophers are forced into hourly teaching contracts and various other precarious, temporary, and poorly-paid jobs. It goes without saying that many talented philosophers have given up on securing an academic job for this reason.

However, those who are fortunate enough to get one of the few jobs on offer are quite fortunate indeed. Advertised jobs are usually for a "lektor", which is roughly equivalent to a "Lecturer" in the UK and an "assistant professor" in the US. Unlike the US assistant professorships, these are not "tenure-track" position, but rather permanent positions (subject only to a minor review in one‘s fifth year, which is more a formality than anything like an American "tenure review"). So one is effectively tenured once one gets one‘s first permanent job. Unlike the UK, however, it is not particularly difficult to advance up the ranks to become a "dósent" ("Reader"/"associate professor"), and then "prófessor" (full professor). Indeed, it is not uncommon for Icelandic academics to be promoted immediately when they are hired into their first permanent position.

What's it like to be a philosopher in Hong Kong?

This is the twelfth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that gives a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. This is a guest contribution by Chris (C.J.) Atkinson, Visiting Scholar at Lingnan University and part-time Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong:

A Philosopher in Hong Kong

It wouldn’t be quite right to start an entry about life as a philosopher in Hong Kong without mentioning the ongoing protests. Originally known as the ‘summer of discontent’, the movement has now continued on well into the winter, and it’s not at all clear when (or how) it will end. Since the protests began on the 9^th of June, millions of people have taken to the streets to stand, in broad strokes, against the ever-increasing influence of Beijing in Hong Kong. As the situation has unfolded, many people have been affected in one way or another, not least university students and academics. Indeed, the students of Hong Kong have, on the whole, been the heart of the movement. Because of this, all universities were forced to close for the final weeks of the autumn term, with two in particular—the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University—becoming epicentres of clashes between protestors and police. It is these incidents, along with many others around the city, that have generated the widely shared images that have recently put Hong Kong on the forefront of the international conscience. Images of large-scale protests, clashes between protestors and police, gang attacks, petrol bombs, and tear gas.

However, as important as these events are for the future of Hong Kong, this is not the city I want to talk to you about here. I would much rather introduce you to the city that I have come to know over the majority of my five years here as a philosopher; both as a student and a full-time academic. And to the city that, I hope, Hong Kong will continue to be. For many, I expect that Hong Kong is not the most obvious choice for pursuing a philosophy career (it certainly wasn’t for me when, as a master’s student in the U.K., I first saw an email advertising the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme—more on that in a minute); but there are in fact many opportunities here for philosophers working at all levels. My aim, then, is to give you a broad overview of what these opportunities are, while also giving you an insight into what it is like to be a philosopher in this unique—and ordinarily very peaceful—city.

What's it like to work as a philosopher in Mexico?

This is the eleventh installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that give a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. This guest contribution is a fully collaborative, co-authored piece by two scholars in Mexico: 

Paloma Atencia is Research Associate at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas (Institute of Philosophical Research) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She works at the intersection between philosophy of art and the philosophy of mind and perception. 

 

Miguel Ángel Sebastian works as Investigador Titular (equivalent to tenured assistant professor) at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas at UNAM. His research focuses on the philosophy of mind, cognitive sciences and consciousness studies. He has also interests in aesthetics, philosophy of language, philosophy of physics and metaphysics.

When you think about Mexico, probably the first thing that comes to your mind are wonderful beaches, great food, friendly people, and Mayan ruins. Also, given the vast cultural and artistic opportunities that Mexico City has to offer, it’s not surprising that it was selected as a top destination to visit in 2019 according to the New York Times. However, it’s not likely that many people think about Mexico when it comes to academic life in general, and Philosophy in particular. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to encounter the more or less implicit assumption that very little interesting philosophical work is done beyond the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and a few other parts of Europe. We think that this is strongly misguided—that’s why we work here! Such an implicit assumption is partially explained by the lack of information, of which we have some responsibility. We would like to take this opportunity to share with you some thoughts on what it is like to do (analytic) Philosophy in Mexico.

It is true that the analytic tradition in Philosophy is still very much underrepresented in Latin America. However, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM) and, more specifically, the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas (IIFs) stands out as one of the very few centers in the region that cultivate and foster work in this tradition. More importantly, contrary to what many people might think, UNAM ranks in Philosophy above many well-known American and European institutions (just go and check your favorite World Universities Ranking). But these are just statistics.

What's it like to be a foreign philosopher in mainland China?

This is the tenth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that give a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. Ever wondered what it's like to teach and research in mainland China? Find out by reading this guest contribution by  Peter Finocchiaro, who is an Associate Professorial Research Fellow (a position equivalent to TT assistant professor) in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University.

Thanks to Helen and Marcus and everyone who has contributed already to this series. I've thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to learn about how philosophy is faring in other parts of the world. I hope I can help others do the same by saying a few things about philosophy in mainland China.

Let's start by acknowledging the obvious: I'm not a Chinese national. I'm an American who has been working in China for all of 15 months. My experience is therefore limited and unrepresentative of that of a typical Chinese academic, being tinted especially by the fact that I am a 外国人 (foreigner). But I will do my best to speak to both my own experiences and the broader state of philosophy in China.

Academic philosophy in China is big and it is growing. Philosophy departments often have dozens of faculty members with large budgets to spend on development. In contrast to the state of academic philosophy in the United States, this growth is helped, rather than hindered, by changes in government spending. That being said, some philosophy departments feel more like a collection of mini-departments organized by research areas. Of those, two tend to be the biggest and most influential: Marxist philosophy and Chinese philosophy. But “foreign philosophy” is growing.

My own university, Wuhan University, is a good case in point. Before 2015, our department’s foreign philosophy faculty were all Chinese nationals, many of them western-trained. The department has since aggressively recruited western-trained philosophers who are themselves westerners. Over the course of four years, the department recruited 14 foreigners, 7 of them as professors and 7 of them as post-docs. This rapid growth has the support of the university’s administration: it recently designated our department a “model department” for internationalization and has awarded it even more money to continue the process. With this support, we've been able to not only hire more people but also finance pretty much anything we foreigners can organize, including colloquium series, research workshops, international conferences, and summer school programs for our students. We're in a very fortunate situation.

What it's like to be a philosopher in Flanders (Belgium)

This is our ninth contribution for The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that give a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. Today: Belgium. This is a guest contribution by Sylvia Wenmackers, BOF research professor at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven.

What academia in Flanders is like

Belgium is a small country in the West of Europe. Flanders is the North part, where Dutch is the official language. In the South part, Wallonia, French is the official language. (There's also a small German part in the East, but since there is no university, it will not figure here.)

There was a time when the elite in Belgian spoke French and all university education was in French as well. As a result of the Flemish emancipation, the universities still have language regulations: a substantial percentage of courses must be in Dutch (more at Bachelor than at Master level) and professors are required to learn Dutch, typically in five years. This requirement does not apply to doctoral or postdoctoral researchers. Still, I will teach you two Dutch words right away! They are synonyms for philosophy: filosofie and wijsbegeerte. (The last one is a literal translation of the Greek.)

In Belgium, all students who have finished their secondary education, typically at 18 years of age, are allowed to start higher education at the university or university college (hogeschool) of their choice. There are no entrance exams (except for medicine and dentistry). Lately, many universities have started organizing orientation tests, but the results of these are non-binding. For international students, language requirements are common.

All Bachelor programs take three years. The regular Master program in Philosophy takes one year, while the Research Master is two years. After that, selected students can start a doctoral program, which typically takes at least four years.

There are five Flemish universities, four of which have a philosophy faculty. From large to small:

• Leuven University. This is the only Flemish university were philosophy is an autonomous faculty, called the Institute of Philosophy. It's organized in six research centres, of which the Husserl archives are probably the best well-known. Leuven offers both a Bachelor and Master program fully in English (parallel to the programs in Dutch), so there is certainly an international student community and some opportunity to get teaching experience in English.

What's it like to be a philosopher in Chile?

This is our eighth contribution for The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that give a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. Today: Chile. This is a guest contribution by Leandro De Brasi, Director of the Master in Philosophy,, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile

Philosophy in Chile

Chile is a bit of a rarity in Latin America. For the last 30 years it has largely been, politically and economically speaking, a rather stable country. This certainly doesn’t make it a terrestrial paradise. There are, for example, many social injustices in Chile (as the recent, massive, nation-wide protests made it clear to everyone that had ignored it, see here).

Having said that, as an academic who has an employment contract with a Chilean university, you won’t get to suffer many of those injustices yourself (although you will easily become aware of them, for instance, by talking to your students). However, this shouldn’t put you off Chile: the country is currently changing and is likely to become more egalitarian (although how much more is to be seen). Moreover, injustices are everywhere and Chile is not much worse than, for example, the USA in that sense (in fact, for better or worse, Chile has mirrored many American policies and economic approaches). Also, the income/cost-of-living quotient of a junior academic philosopher is likely to be higher in Chile than, say, in the UK.

Chilean Academia

In Chile, there is no tenure (i.e. guaranteed permanent employment). Nevertheless, it is not uncommon for academics to get contracts for an indefinite period, which are subject to regularly decent academic evaluations. These jobs normally involve research, teaching and service work. The number of hours per week dedicated to each depends on a series of factors (and anyway percentages can, in practice, be set differently for different people regardless of research performance and other evaluations). Some universities differentiate between teaching-focused and research-focused academics, but even in the latter case it is unlikely that the proportion of the job devoted to research will be greater than 35% (and it is likely that you will need to work longer than your contracted hours to carry out the research you are expected to do given that many teaching and service hours, such as supervising ones, are normally not properly counted).

However, Chilean universities are gradually starting to appreciate the value of research. This is in part due to the fact that there exists a governmental accreditation system in place since the beginning of the XXI Century that aims to assure the public about the educational quality, including importantly the research quality, of both higher education institutions as a whole and their particular undergraduate and postgraduate programs (see here, link in Spanish).

What’s it like to be a philosopher in Germany

This is our seventh installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series of posts on what's it like to be a philosopher in different countries outside of the Anglophone west. This is a guest post by Gen Eickers, postdoc at the University of Education Ludwigsburg (Germany).

I am not sure I know what it’s like to be a philosopher in Germany – I am quite young and just finished my Ph.D., I am trans, I do not have an academic family background – all of this makes me somewhat unrepresentative of philosophers here, but, at the same time, this very fact tells us something about the system and tells us something about what it is like to be a philosopher in Germany. A lot of people think of Germany as some kind of philosophers’ nation. At least, this is a comment I have frequently encountered at philosophy conferences and also from non-philosophers at private gatherings. Being a philosopher in Germany is thought of as stepping into big shoes, it seems. However, thinking of Germany as a kind of philosopher’s nation is true only if we think of philosophy as the discipline of white cis men, since the figures that have earned that reputation fall under that label. Philosophy in Germany is still dominated by white cis men and their advantages in accessing the field remain immense. Referring to Germany as a philosophers’ nation plays into this narrative of philosophy as the discipline of white cis men. This is a narrative I resist. For what I know, like all things in Germany, being a philosopher here requires patience, access to know-how that’s not explicitly formulated anywhere, and a lot of paperwork. The access to the know-how is, I think, what makes being an academic philosopher in Germany so difficult for some of us.

Let me try to explain the procedure first. The first step in order to become a professor is the doctoral thesis. Most people here take on jobs in academia before starting to work on their dissertation. A lot work on their dissertation while having a job contract at a university as academic staff. That is why a lot of philosophers here need 5-7 years to finish their doctoral studies. For philosophers, a German-wide rule is that the doctoral dissertation needs to be published. Typically, you need to publish within two years, and as long as the dissertation is not published, you are not eligible to call yourself a “Dr” - publishing one’s dissertation is key to being able to carry the title. Among the hierarchical structure this rule carries and permeates, this practice has also led publishing houses to charge people for publishing their dissertation. Typically, the amount one has to pay is between 800-2000€. The classist and elitist underpinnings of this practice aside, being charged to publish one’s own work downplays the value and amount of work one has put into a dissertation.

With the doctoral degree, you can apply for lectureships or postdocs at universities. The salary is not overwhelming, but you can certainly survive well if your position is full-time and if you do not have to commute. It’s pretty normal for philosophers in Germany to not get a full position and to commute, however. There are very few tenured jobs in academic philosophy in Germany – this is due to the system that requires a “Professor” title in addition to the “Dr” title in order to be tenured. For people who want to become a professor in Germany, publishing papers, teaching, and researching is not enough. Being a professor in Germany means being legally permitted to carry the title “Prof.”. In order to achieve that, philosophers here have to write a habilitation. While some universities have opened up to the option of a cumulative habilitation (i.e., publishing several papers about a specific topic), it is still common practice to have to write another dissertation, one that is supposed to be more impactful and substantive than the first. The habilitation gets evaluated by a committee and typically one has to go through a kind of defense as well.

Remarks on the Peruvian philosophical profession

This is our sixth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series of posts on what's it like to be a philosopher in different countries outside of the Anglophone west. This is a guest post by David Villena Saldaña, Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru. 

Peru stands out as one of the most cultural and ethnic diverse countries in Latin America. The linguistic indicators of such a diversity are striking. Apart from Spanish, which the law establishes as the official language, 47 other languages are spoken along the country, among them the most spoken indigenous language in all the Americas: Quechua. (Other languages with an important population of speakers are: Aymara, Asháninka, and Awajún.)

Notwithstanding this rich cultural plurality and the lively and elaborate world views it encompasses, the philosophy which is taught at tertiary level for both philosophy and non-philosophy majors is overwhelmingly Western in perspective and scope. It is not uncommon for Peruvian professional philosophers to approach philosophy in complete alienation from Peruvian reality, pressing problems, and intellectual history. In fact, inside the mind of local practitioners philosophy amounts mainly to the consumption of the history of Western philosophy – which in most of the cases means summarizing the works of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and so on, and seldom trying to expand or reinterpret the ideas and problems addressed by these thinkers.

The alienation is not restricted to the nature of the problems and the way in which they are approached. It also happens that Peruvian professional philosophers tend to work in complete isolation from other Peruvian professional philosophers. There is a pervasive and bewildering mutual ignorance. In addition to ignoring what other philosopher colleagues publish or what they specialize on, in my experience (more than 10 years teaching in several institutions and regions) they even ignore who the others are: their names and numbers. There are islands. Philosophers working in different universities and cities barely know anything about the very existence of their fellow compatriot philosophers.

This phenomenon – which is an epistemic and social deficiency – is not a consequence of the big number of philosophy schools and programs in the country. Actually, out of 143 universities in Peru, only 7 offer currently a degree in Philosophy: 1 in Arequipa (National University of Saint Augustine), 1 in Cusco (National University of Saint Anthony the Abbot), and 5 in Lima (Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University, Federico Villarreal National University, Lima’s Pontifical and Civil Faculty of Theology, National University of San Marcos, and Pontifical Catholic University of Peru) – not quite a disproportion in the distribution of Schools of Philosophy if it is taken into account that around one-third of the country’s population (which is 32 million of inhabitants) lives in Lima. (It is interesting to notice, on the other hand, that 4 universities (Catholic University Sedes Sapientiae, Female University of the Sacred Heart, Alas Peruanas University, and University of Piura) that offered a master degree in Philosophy shut down their respective programs within the last decade. This gives an idea of the local philosophical market’s contraction.)

Being a philosopher in Singapore

This is the fifth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series on what it's like to work as an academic philosopher in countries outside of the anglophone west. This is a guest post by Bob Beddor (National University of Singapore). Many thanks to Bob and the contributors so far for such a great series of posts!

Back in 2016 when I was finishing up grad school, I saw a PhilJobs ad for a position at the National University of Singapore (NUS). At the time I knew very little about Singapore. But it seemed like an exciting adventure, so I tossed off an application. I’m very glad I did! In the weeks before my fly-out, I read a lot of papers by philosophers here and grew increasingly impressed. During the campus visit, I had stimulating discussions with both faculty and students, and came to see Singapore as a place I’d enjoy calling home. My partner was also enthusiastic about Singapore (she’s a software engineer, and Singapore has a burgeoning tech scene), so when I got the offer, we decided to give it a go.  

Some background about Singapore:  Singapore is an island city-state in Southeast Asia. For many people coming from the West, it’s a fairly easy place to live. It’s clean and safe, there’s a good public transportation system, and English is the primary language of education and commerce. One thing I’ve found refreshing about Singapore is the high value placed on education:  Singaporean schools are regularly ranked among the best in the world, and educators are widely respected. I’ve also really enjoyed the travel opportunities: I’ve been able to explore lots of places in the region that I probably never would have visited had I stayed in the US. (You can easily do weekend trips to Bangkok, Bali, Angkor Wat, etc.) For a Michigander like myself, the main challenge has been getting used to the weather. Singapore is right on the equator, with a tropical rainforest climate. But even this downside has a silver lining:  while friends back home are complaining about polar vortexes and whatnot, it’s nice hanging out by the pool!

A bit about my university:  NUS is a large research university, with about 35,000 students. While the vast majority of the students are Singaporean, you get students from all over the world. The students here are really impressive:  they’re very bright and tend to be genuinely passionate about philosophical questions. While teaching is highly valued, hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions are primarily based on research.  

In many respects, being a philosopher at NUS is similar to being a philosopher at a well-funded research university in the states. The teaching load is light (2:1). There’s a lot of funding for conference travel; larger research grants are also available. In a time when philosophy lines are drying up around the world, we’re fortunate to have been able to make lots of hires recently. Since I was hired three years ago, we’ve made four tenure-track hires in philosophy, and we’ve just been approved to make two more TT-hires this year.  

One challenge of being a philosopher in Singapore is that it can be a pain to get to philosophy events overseas. (Getting funding for travel is much easier than doing all the long-haul flights!) However, the philosophy scene in Singapore is quite tight-knight and dynamic. We have a weekly reading group at NUS where faculty give each other feedback on papers in progress, and there are fantastic philosophers at a number of other Singaporean universities – e.g., Yale-NUS, Nanyang Technological University, and Singapore Management University.  (My colleague Mike Pelczar estimates that Singapore has more philosophers per square meter than any other country on earth.) We’ve also been working to bring more of the philosophy conference scene to Singapore: we recently hosted an epistemology workshop at NUS and hope to organize more events in the future.  

Marcus mentioned that it would be helpful to say a few words about what makes an applicant competitive for a philosophy job in Singapore. Hiring practices vary from university to university; I can only speak for NUS. Typically, our searches are Open-Rank, Open-AOS, and get around 300 applicants for a position. The main thing we look for when deciding fly-outs is a strong research record – pretty much everyone we’ve flown out in recent years has had at least one or two publications in top journals. Of course, this isn’t the only factor; ability to contribute to the department’s teaching needs, breadth of the applicant’s research program, and evaluation of the writing sample also play a role. At the campus visit stage, the two most important components are the job talk and the teaching demo. (We are a bit unusual in that we require an hour-long teaching demo.) In our department hiring decisions are made democratically – everyone in the department gets an equal vote - which I think has been a helpful practice for ensuring everyone’s voice is heard.

Looking ahead, I think there are grounds for optimism about the future of academic philosophy in Singapore. Indeed, I think there’s reason to hopeful about the future of academic philosophy in Asia more generally: a bunch of universities across Asia have started investing in analytic philosophy. It’ll be exciting to see how this development shapes our field going forward!

What's it like to be a philosopher in Argentina?

This is our fourth installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series of posts on what it's like to work as an academic philosopher in countries outside the anglophone west. This is a guest post by Ignacio Silva, Research Fellow at the Philosophy Institute, Universidad Austral in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

After twelve years in the UK, I returned to Argentina in 2017 to join the research philosophy institute at Universidad Austral, a small, internationally well-ranked, private university. During my time abroad I did my doctorate and worked as a post-doc in several research projects (the classic story of an early-career scholar going from one post-doc to another, though luckily in my case – as I like to think – these positions were all at the same institution). Perhaps naïvely, I thought that returning to my home country after this experience would mean easily landing a permanent position. Mine were nothing but vain hopes: soon I realised that several private universities were happy to hire me as long as I brought external (international) funding to cover my own salary and research costs; that was the only deal I could get, and the same applied to a bunch of my friends who studied and worked abroad. So I did in the end, and, though I’m not technically a post-doc any more, I’m still looking forward to the time when I can say that I have a permanent position. I start with my story simply to illustrate how difficult it is to find a job in a country where experience abroad is certainly a meaningful thing. In fairness, though, it is not the same for those who stay in the national state system. I shall come back to this later on this post (two disclaimers here: 1) I work with Templeton funding, which made my landing back home by far easier than that of many of my friends; 2) this post is but my take on Argentine philosophy today… of course, other stories could be told, and mine does nothing to invalidate them). So let me first try to describe the philosophical environment in Argentina.

Argentina is a country with a long and robust philosophical tradition, with a strong vocation to engage in the international scene and that attracts many regional students. This tradition is characterised in particular for its strong continental heritage, and as such, most Argentine philosophers work either in the phenomenological/hermeneutical traditions or in the history of philosophy. Of late, however, Argentine philosophers have actively engaged in the analytic tradition (in philosophy of science, logic, ethics, among other), a tradition that has grown to be as dominant as the continental one. This is not to say, of course, that these are the only philosophical traditions in the country. In fact, Thomism, within Catholic circles, is rather large in numbers as well. Perhaps the most notorious common feature to all these traditions in Argentina is that they have very little contact with each other (there are some incipient trends to eradicate this incommunicability, which makes me hopeful, though much work still needs to be done on this matter). I’m perhaps the only person teaching and doing analytic philosophy of religion in the country (or undoubtedly one of the very few… so few that I don’t know them! There’s certainly no one doing religion at the Argentine Society for Analytic Philosophy – SADAF – that has about 270 members).

Being a philosopher in Colombia: Reasons for optimism

This is our third installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series of posts on what it's like to work as an academic philosopher in countries outside the anglophone west. This is a guest post by Santiago Amaya is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. You can find more about him at here. 

Being a philosopher in Colombia is a lot like being an academic in many parts of the world. At least, that’s how it looks on paper. I am an Associate Professor at a leading institution in my country. I teach, write, and try to get published, all of which is very stimulating. I also spend quite a bit of time in committee meetings. Not fun, for sure, but I am told that’s how things are almost everywhere these days.

Move beyond appearances and you’ll find texture. Lots of it! The country is going through singular times that bring interesting challenges, new opportunities, and a renewed sense of relevance. There is much that needs to be built in Colombia today. And philosophy here has the good chance of contributing to it.

You’ve probably heard about the Colombian peace process. (If you haven’t, please take a break from reading philosophy blogs and read some real news.) It started in 2012, reached a peace agreement in 2016, and is bringing to an end a 50-year conflict between FARC and the Colombian government. Today we’re going through the process of its implementation. In political terms, it’s been a struggle: war is profitable business for politicians. In philosophical terms, it’s been a Socratic dream.

The questions are out there, in the minds of people on the streets. Is reconciliation possible? How can we turn hatred into respect? What is the point of punishment? Of forgiveness? With my students, we’ve gone over these and similar questions many times in and out of class. As a moral psychologist, I have made a modest contribution, which you can read here.

I moved to Bogotá 6 years ago after finishing my PhD in the PNP program at Washington University in St. Louis and a 1-year postdoc at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. I felt some anxiety about my career when I took the offer. Although I grew up in the city and was returning to my alma mater, my philosophical home was elsewhere. As reasonable as these sentiments were at the time, the worries I had then have now disappeared.

Let me explain. Colombia is far from being at the “center of things,” philosophical or otherwise.  The distance is certainly not geographical. You can jump on a plane in New York and arrive in Bogotá in less time than it would take to get to L.A. If you are in Miami you can get here before you make it to Chicago. It’s more about North-South power dynamics. At any given conference in North America, it’s more likely that people ask me about Narcos than they ask about my work.

Being in the “periphery,” however, has many advantages, as I’ve come to discover. With distance, the gulf between what’s fashionable in the “center” and what really matters philosophically becomes sharper. In my corner of the world, the things that “mainstream” philosophers find intuitive are often regarded as bizarre. Many catchy phrases and terms of art do not translate well. All of this, I believe, makes it easier to find a unique philosophical voice. And that is something really valuable to me.

The Nigerian Philosopher in a Fund-Starved Academic System

This is the second installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a look at what it's like to be a philosopher in countries outside the anglophone west. This is a guest post by Ada Agada, faculty member at The Conversational School of Philosophy, University of Calabar, Nigeria (read more about the general state of African philosophy in his Aeon piece, here).

A year in the academic life of the typical Nigerian philosopher is a long one defined by frustration, mediocrity (either self-imposed or externally imposed) and drama. The drama aspect revolves around violent student activism leading to university closures, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) industrial actions, blood-letting on university campuses by students who are members of violent cults, the intrigue surrounding the selection of new vice chancellors, the latest corruption scandals, political interference in university administration, or accusations of sexual harassment directed at prominent professors. There is drama all right, and plenty frustration.

In Nigeria the apex labour union that protects university teachers’ interests, ASUU, is best known for calling industrial actions that last from a few weeks to an entire academic session. An academic session consists of two semesters of about four months each. But the regularity of industrial actions in the system means that public universities have no fixed academic calendar and students are often on enforced holidays. It is not unusual for a student pursuing a four-year philosophy degree to end up staying in the university for six years. The rationale for the frequent and destabilising ASUU strikes is the avowed commitment to the fight to prevent the Nigerian university system from collapse. The usual ASUU focus is university funding.

The private universities fare much better in terms of calendar stability. Unionism is discouraged in the private universities. They are all relatively young universities and mostly lack the profile of the public universities. Just two or three private universities, notably Covenant University, can compete favourably with the established public universities.

Committed Nigerian philosophers immersed in the academia in Nigeria are buffeted from all sides by forces they are mostly unable to control. The gravest challenge the Nigerian philosopher faces is poor research funding, which in turn means meaningful research activities cannot be fruitfully pursued. Most Nigerian philosophy departments have departmental libraries to augment central libraries that exist virtually in name only as some of these central libraries have not been restocked in decades. You walk into the libraries and you see mostly centuries- and decades-old volumes on Western philosophy. Unfortunately, the fate that befell the central libraries is also the portion of the various departmental libraries. Philosophers have no choice but to depend wholly on their self-funded libraries. And it is never easy for the Nigerian philosopher to go about building library capacity in view of the poor remuneration package of Nigerian academics relative to their counterparts elsewhere. Conference attendance grants, postdoctoral fellowship grants, and other research-related funding are either non-existent or come sporadically.

Obviously, actors in the Nigerian academic system are aware of the importance of research and excellent research funding for the optimal performance of the system. The strange problem here is how well-intentioned interventions are frustrated internally and externally, such that the funding matter becomes intractable. The Nigerian government set up the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) in 2011 by an act of the Nigerian parliament to address the research quagmire in Nigerian higher institutions, with special focus on the university system. While substantial funds have accumulated in the coffers of TETFund, academics, including philosophers, have bitterly complained about the difficulty in accessing the funds. Bureaucratic bottlenecks in the application process, the perennial menace of corrupt practices, intellectual indolence, and sundry other factors have been blamed for the poor performance of TETFund. Surprising as it may sound, the TETFund administrators have had cause to complain about the poor research proposals submitted by some academics, leading to rejection. Certain unscrupulous scholars awarded TETFund scholarship to study in the West and Asia have been known to have scandalously diverted study funds into private bank accounts and stayed put in the country. Many philosophers have found the application process for publication funding too long and cumbersome.

Even with the TETFund intervention, the Nigerian philosopher’s access to much needed funds remains grossly restricted. Nigerian philosophers compare their unenviable situation with the much more comfortable situation of their counterparts in the West, parts of Asia, and even South Africa (which has the most developed university education system in Africa). To improve themselves and be more competitive in the current global village, Nigerian philosophers are forced to look to the West, mostly, for research funding. They apply for one foreign fellowship or the other. If they are lucky and successful they are able to work for a while in the West and see how things are done differently. Indeed, migration is top on the priority list of Nigerian philosophers as such an event alone promises them escape from the frustrating research situation at home. The migration bug has, unfortunately, created a grave problem which I think has not received the serious attention it deserves. Here I speak of the phenomenon of brain drain. Top Nigerian philosophers are finding ‘safe’ havens in European and American universities where they generally excel.

In recent times, however, some of these philosophers are no longer at ease with the ‘Trumpification’ of Western politics and the upsurge of populist sentiments. Consequently, some committed Nigerian philosophers conclude that the devil one knows is better than the angel one does not know. They stay put in Nigeria fighting a losing war to save a collapsing academic system, doing their best to impart knowledge to their students and hoping against hope while sliding into the mediocrity that has become second nature to Nigerian universities. Thus even the committed philosopher steadily becomes immersed in the everyday averageness Martin Heidegger talks about in the context of the inauthentic life.

The Cocoon goes global: Being a philosopher in Indonesia (guest post by Tiddy Smith)

Updated: comments now open!

We are excited to start a new series on the Cocoon entitled The Cocoon Goes Global, where we will host guest posts by philosophers who work in countries that are outside of the anglophone western world. We will feature philosophers who work in places such as Germany, China, Singapore, South Korea, Colombia, Chile, Belgium, Turkey, and much more. These posts will give you a sense of what's it like to work in these countries, and also sketch the job market. We will focus on people who work in academic posts (but they don't need to be tenure track positions). If you fit these criteria and would like to be featured, please let us know! Here is our first installment. 

Being an academic philosopher in Indonesia, by Tiddy Smith, University of Indonesia. 

In 2017, I completed my PhD at the University of Otago. That’s probably when everything started to unravel. Having lived a blissful life of steady study and a paycheck, I was plunged into the abyss, the nightmare, the academic purgatory known as the Real World. I applied for well over a hundred academic positions, and received three interviews, only one of which went particularly well. After this particular rejection, I asked the interviewer how I could have performed better, he simply responded: “You couldn’t have. Someone else just was better.” I had published in premier journals and had a book in press. Yet everyone else seemed to have published in better venues, with a couple of books under their belt, and were probably booked for the next series of John Locke lectures. I decided, at this point, to change tack.

Rewind the clock a decade. I lived in Jakarta. I taught English as a foreign language to rich kids at a private school. During my time there, I became semi-conversational in Bahasa Indonesia, and familiar with all the local hazards (floods, fires, and terrible beasties called “tomcats”. Trust me, google it). Since that time, I have always had a soft spot for Indonesia. I love the food. I love the people. I love the language. It contains some of the most paradisiacal islands of our solar system, and probably the next one over too. After my hundred and somethingth rejection, I began to investigate whether Indonesian universities would be interested in my application. After a year of negotiations, some aspects of which are still in progress, I am now employed as an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Indonesia (roughly speaking, this is equal to an adjunct assistant professor position, in US terms). 

Indonesia is home to 265 million people, of which 150 million live on the island of Java. The country claims around 4,000 higher education institutions, though most of these are of undeniably poor quality in terms of teaching and research (the government’s own assessment states that 77% of these institutions are substandard). Around 120 of these institutions are state universities, and there are many more private universities. Of these, three universities stand out as both prestigious and productive in research and teaching. These three are the University of Indonesia (Universitas Indonesia, Depok), Gadjah Mada University (Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta), and the Bandung Institute of Technology (Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung). The University of Indonesia excels in Law and Medicine. Gadjah Mada excels in humanities and social science, and the Bandung Institute of Technology excels in Engineering and Business. All three universities feature in the latest QS World University rankings, and are ranked 296, 320, and 331 respectively.

Until 2018, foreign lecturers could not be directly employed by these universities as permanent members of academic staff. However, law changes by president Joko Widodo (affectionately known as “Jokowi”) have opened the doors for foreign lecturers to enter the academic job market for the first time. Unfortunately, this law change has not been much exploited by the universities in question. Few, if any, have so much as advertised academic vacancies online or in international venues. Part of the reason for this is that the question of just how these institutions should go about employing foreign staff remains a bureaucratic mystery. The visa process is not only complex, but ever-changing, and still more changes are anticipated in the wake of Jokowi’s law change. There is talk of the introduction of a new kind of academic visa, but this seems only to underline the uncertainty and difficulty of the existing process. The problem is also exacerbated by an existing practice within the universities to employ “by appointment”, in a way which can be prone to institutional nepotism. Without any reform to the employment process, the chances are slim that a great influx of foreign lecturers will soon come to the country. In any case, intrepid candidates who are interested in the possibility of employment at an Indonesian university would be most sensible to make themselves known to their department of interest directly. That is what I did.