Mission statement (note: new posts are below mission)

*Updated on 3/5/2015 in response to feedback.

Recent research on citation-rates in academic philosophy and stories of people not receiving due credit for published work indicate a need to improve citation and credit-giving practices in the discipline, so that people can enjoy proper credit and recognition.

This blog aims to help do this by providing a forum for individuals in academic philosophy to bring to light general instances of work not receiving due credit or citations. Just to be clear, this site is not a forum for allegations of impropriety against specific individuals, articles, etc. (such things will not be published either in posts or in comments-sections of posts--though substantive critiques of claims made by authors in particular articles is welcome). Rather, this is a forum for people to (A) argue that particular works or authors have been unfairly neglected (i.e. not adequately cited or otherwise given due credit) in the philosophical literature in general, and (B) critically debate these arguments in comment-sections of corresponding posts.

Legitimate examples would be stories of the following sort:

1. "Philosopher X published argument Y in year 20ZZ, but argument Y is commonly attributed to other philosophers, not X."
2. "Philosopher X is commonly credited with first arguing Y, but Philosopher Z argued Y previously here, here, and here."
   
3. "Philosophers X, Y, and Z are commonly cited in the literature on Topic T, but Philosopher A has published noteworthy work on Topic T but is never/rarely cited."

This site, in other words, is intended to be a forum for people to bring to light, critically debate, and rectify systematic citation and credit-giving problems in academic philosophy. Anonymous and public posts alike are welcomed. Please submit posts to Marcus Arvan at [email protected].

Comments

[Frederick]

I'm confused.

On the one hand you say that the goal of the blog is to "bring to light *general* instances of work not receiving due credit or citations." On the other, you say that the blog is a forum for people to "argue that particular works or authors have been unfairly neglected."

Can you explain how it can be both? "General" is apparently bolded to indicate that you are not interested in specific cases. But it seems you are. And what is a "general instance" anyway?

[anonymous]

Warning: rant coming.
The frustration that leads to the existence of this blog, and the posts that have appeared so far, is experienced nearly every day when those of us who do medieval philosophy look at contemporary philosophy. Here's an example from last week: NDPR celebrates a book from OUP on omissions, a book touted by the press as "the first comprehensive account of these phenomena". [Moderator note: sentence deleted according to blog mission]. However, medieval thinkers from every stripe theorized extensively on sins of omissions with great philosophical precision. Ok. Rant over. Back to Latin texts.