What is an "Area of Competence"?

So everyone familiar with the philosophy job market knows that your CV is supposed to list your "Areas of Specialization" (AOS) and "Areas of Competence" (AOC), and most jobs in fact mention one or both of these qualifications with regard to the applicants they are soliciting.  AOS, I take it, is usually fairly clear:  it is the area in which you have written your dissertation and might include closely cognate areas in which you plan to publish and in which you can do graduate-level teaching.

But I find that, invariably, philosophers have very different views about how a candidate determines his or her AOC.  I usually tell students that the AOC comprises those areas where you are willing and able to do advanced or upper-level undergraduate teaching.  That can, of course, cast the net quite widely, so sometimes it is advisable to limit the list by putting more weight on willing or emphasizing areas that naturally complement the AOS or areas where the student has substantial coursework background.  A very long AOC list (say, six or seven different areas) can look like over-reaching by the candidate, and raise questions about superficiality and seriousness.  Or so it has seemed to me.

I imagine many philosophers and job candidates would fine it useful to hear how others view the "area of competence."  (I'm happy to hear thoughts about "AOS" as well.)  Please post only once; non-anonymous comments preferred; and, as usual, comments may take awhile to appear.

Comments

[Aaron Preston]

The APA has proposed some definitions of these terms, here:

http://www.apa.udel.edu/JobS/faqAppendix.html

The definitions are as follows:

Area of Specialization

An area of specialization is one in which an individual has considerable experience and has done a significant amount of research. For those at the beginning of their careers, this would be the area(s) in which their dissertations belong; for others, it would be their primary area(s) of publication.

Area of Competence

An area of competence is one in which an individual is qualified to teach undergraduate and, possibly, some graduate courses, but which is not a primary area of concentration and/or research.

[Lester Hunt]

I agree with the first commenter. AOC is things you are now prepared to teach -- at some level or other. If you limit it to advanced or upper-level undergrad teaching, as Brian suggests, this would (at least given the way I do things) limit AOC to things I do original research on. In other words it would tend to collapse AOC into AOS. The bottom line, as I tell young job-seekers, is that you should make sure that you only put things down in AOC that you would be happy to teach -- because someone is liable to take you at your word and make you teach it!

[Fritz Alhoff]

I actually think that this is an interesting question, and one I have spent lots of time talking to friends about. My worries with the concepts are two-fold.

First, the AOC just seems too weak: most of us, with enough time, could teach an undergraduate (even advanced undergraduate) course on just about anything. This fact threatens to make the concept completely vapid. Some pressure can be put on the "enough time" part of it as, for example, saying that I could teach Wittgenstein with two years of preparation is antithetical to the notion of it being an *actual* area of competence (which, I assure you, it is not...). So some people say things like "with reasonably short preparation" or "after a summer" or something like that. Fair enough, but that still leads me to believe that most philosophers could claim most AOCs (and not even disingenously if they were willing to prepare the classes). I've heard some people propose overly restrictive definitions such that AOCs are courses that have already been taught or TAd for but these seem, well, overly restrictive. Someone can surely be ready to teach a course without having taught it, and then people who have been on research fellowships woudln't have *any* AOCs, which seems silly.

Regarding the AOS, again, the "standard" conception is something that people publish or do research in. I think the worry here is less widely acknowledged, but I maintain that only about half of professional philosophers do research at all. This might sound ridiculous--even though it seems obvious to me--but it's just a fact that there are a lot of philosophers at teaching posts (read: a *lot*) and these people just don't write. If AOS->research, then ~research->~AOS, and I wonder whether that's too restrictive. I doubt this will be popular, but I'm actually not sure that it's insane: maybe these people really *don't* "specialize".

Anyway, these are just a couple of thoughts. I've noticed that I've changed my AOSs/AOCs since graduate school, even though my research and abilities have not. Back then, I felt more inclined to look broad and wrote down more things, whereas now, I think that such a presentation makes me look unfocused. I don't, though, think that the first versions were inappropriate since I really *could* have taught the things that I wrote down, but maybe the difference is precisely one that Brian suggests, which has to do with willingness... ;)

[Andrei Buckareff]

I have noticed that many younger philosophers are keeping their number of areas of competence down and adding a section on their CV labelled "areas of teaching interest," or something to that effect. I did this on my CV when I first went on the job market after I noticed that others were doing that. This allowed me to keep my areas of specialization and competence down to a modest number that reflected the areas I have published in and did my dissertation on, and the areas in which I could easily teach advanced level undergraduate courses. But I was able to indicate that without too much preparation I could teach other courses in cognate areas (and was interested in doing so). The upshot has been that I have wound up teaching as many courses in my areas of teaching interest. So Lester's advice is wise--don't say you're interested in teaching something unless you are willing to teach that course.

[Aaron Preston]

Fritz says:

“If AOS->research, then ~research->~AOS, and I wonder whether that's too restrictive. I doubt this will be popular, but I'm actually not sure that it's insane: maybe these people really *don't* "specialize".”

It's hard to avoid reflecting upon this comment in metaphilosophical and socio-disciplinary terms. It seems right to say that specialization is tied to research, but, apart from current and utterly contingent disciplinary norms, it seems wrong to tie research to writing and publication. Surely there is no inconsistency, either logical or psychological, in thinking that there are people who, on account of their deep familiarity with a certain area of philosophical inquiry, should count as specialists in that area, even if they don't publish much. For instance, would anyone deny that Burt Dreben was a specialist in the history of analytic philosophy despite the fact that he did not publish much? Would anyone deny that Saul Kripke is a specialist in mathematical logic/philosophy of language despite the fact that he has published little as compared with some other philosophers of his stature?

It is hard to see an alternative to the current professional situation in which publication stands not merely as one form of evidence but as the most significant form of evidence of “specialist” or “expert” status. However, I think it does have weaknesses that we would do well to keep in mind. For instance, most everyone would acknowledge that an expert who prefers to learn (research, study) and to teach rather than to publish can be of great value to the profession and the world insofar as her teaching within her specialization will probably be excellent. But this kind of excellence won't count nearly as much as excellence in publication when it comes to decisions about hiring, promotion, and tenure, at least at most of our flagship institutions of higher education. And so, plenty of people who could be making significant contributions to the world through academic philosophy get passed over, sometimes for people who are excellent at engaging their fellow specialists through publication, but at little else (I want to emphasize the *sometimes*--of course there are people who do equally well in publication and teaching).

[David Hunter]

I'm quite curious about others thoughts on this, since it is something that affects me quite closely. I have tended to use the research/teaching divide to indicate my Areas of Specialisation and Areas of Competence.

The problem that I have is that I do a lot of intra-disciplinary work, in other words work which moves between two or more subcategories of philosophy. So for example my 65000 word* Masters Thesis was on the normative commitments that theodicies (responses to the argument from evil) have to make, and whether these normative concepts are compatible with something like the classic Omni-God. As such it was philosophy of religion, but also covered a considerable amount of normative ethics (in particular consequentialism) and applied ethics. Likewise my PhD involves developing a Luck Egalitarian account of distributive justice in the context of health care. Thus it is political philosophy, but also medical ethics.

My way of dealing this is to offer a brief justification of my claims of areas of specialisation so:
Philosophy of Religion (Esp Argument from Evil)
Normative ethical thoery (Esp Consequentialism)
These were covered in my MA thesis

Political Philosophy (Esp distributive justice)
Medical Ethics (Esp allocation of health care resources)
These are covered in my PhD thesis

Research Ethics
Via practical experience and research I sit on three research ethics committees, and have published 6 papers on research ethics.

I'm curious to see what people think about this strategy, I am aware that as Brian points out in regards to many areas of competency this does have something of an appearance of a jack of all trades master of none. I'm hoping justifying the claims makes it clear that this is not the case since they are all areas which I am to a greater or lesser degree research active in, and would intend to continue being active in.

*I give the figure not to boast, but for comparative purposes and to indicate that the MA thesis component was a serious full year research degree.

[Jonathan Weinberg]

In terms of a market/interview setting, I usually advise students that their AOC list sends a signal to their potential interviewers about a list of areas about which they should be able to have a fairly decent professional conversation. If someone lists an AOC, then I'd feel entitled as an interviewer to ask them what their interest in that area was, what work they had found important, etc -- they don't _at all_ need to have any sort of well-worked-out views of their own (as opposed to with their AOSs, where they darn well better), but they should be prepared for a moderately high-level, friendly chat about some relevant parts of the literature.

(I also think this would, if added as a necessary condition for listing an AOC, would take care of a lot of Fritz's worries about the weakness of the 'can teach' condition on its own.)

[David Sobel]

What an AOC means to me hinges on what stage the person is at in their career. But early in one's career it means to me 1)I might try to publish in this area and 2) Count on me to be able to ask a reasonable question at a talk in this area and 3) I am not only able but happy to teach advanced undergrad courses in this area. If someone has more than 3 AOCs I start getting suspicious.

[Mark Schroeder]

I find Brian's comment about six or seven AOC's amounting to such a very long list that it raises questions about superficiality and seriousness to be particularly striking. True, some people may overreach and represent themselves as having broader confidence than they really do possess. But philosophers also vary a great deal in terms of breadth. Some who list two or three AOC's may be stretching themselves, and others who list eight are being modest.

And this isn't only because some are narrower than others; it is also because some areas are larger than others, given conventional ways of dividing up the field. One philosopher may work, wholly within the philosophy of mind, on consciousness, intentionality, perception, and action theory - for many purposes quite distinct literatures - listing only 'philosophy of mind' on her CV, while another may be familiar primarily only with the literature on consciousness, and list 'philosophy of mind' on her CV. Is either of them making a mistake? Certainly when it comes to AOS's, a lot of researchers in philosophy of mind work only in one of those areas.

So I'm skeptical, if this is what Brian meant to imply, about any strong evidential connection between the number of AOC's and the extent of 'overreaching'. But that is not to say that job candidates shouldn't worry about this perception when constructing their CV's - on the contrary, our discipline is particularly adept at a priori evaluations of CV's. We prefer to infer that someone with more AOC's is overreaching to the conclusion that they are, in fact, broader, just as we prefer to jump to the conclusion that someone with more articles is doing work of a lower quality, even before we bother to read it. This kind of thing is a common vice in our discipline, as far as I can tell.

If that's all Brian meant by 'raising questions', then I agree with him; prudence does warrant being careful about setting someone off on even a faulty inference. I don't, however, endorse the idea that six or seven AOC's is automatically too many, much less David's suggestion that more than three is genuinely suspicious. As for myself, depending on how you count, I've actually published in three or four of my AOC's, and would like to eventually publish in all of them. And as for my own primary area of research, I don't think that anyone is fully competent in the range of issues in metaethics unless they are at least broadly competent in normative ethics, language, mind, metaphysics, and epistemology, even if they're not prepared to teach in those areas - so that's five right there. Whereas someone might be able to be highly competent in a very broad range of issues in, say, the philosophy of language, without competence outside of language and logic.

The bottom line is that you have a strong incentive not to include AOC's that you don't really want to teach - because it's only going to benefit you to have them on your CV, if you are being considered for a job where you'll be asked to teach them! The better that job candidates understand this kind of incentive to not include AOC's that overreach, the better the evidentiary value of the list of AOC's will be, and hopefully the fewer the cases in which the CV is read with Brian's kind of a priori skepticism.

[Nathan Placencia]

As a graduate student looking forward to going on the job market in the next year or two, I've always thought that the AOS should be those subfields to which your dissertation makes a significant contribution. Your AOC should be subfields you have had some significant time to think about during your graduate career and would be excited to teach.

However, as David H. indicated, there is another related question that besets those working on their CV. Where does our research fall along the standard subfields of philosophy? For example, here are the foci of my dissertation.

1. The metaphysics of the social domain (Does this fall under social philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of the social sciences?)

2. The metaphysics of race and other social identities (Again, where does this fall?)

3. The moral psychology of race and other social identities. That is, how are social identities internalized and how do they contribute to human action. (Ethics?)

To avoid confusion among search committees I've thought of taking David's route.

Thus my AOS would be:
Social Philosophy (esp. the philosophy of race), Ethics (esp. moral psychology), Metaphysics (esp. the metaphysics of the social domain).

And my AOC would be:
Latin-American Philosophy and 20th Century German Philosophy

This sounds cumbersome and I am also afraid that this may lead some to believe that I am the aforementioned jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none.

Any thoughts on how to sort things out?

[Rico Vitz]

Nathan, wouldn't this (or something roughly like this) work:

AOS: Social and Political Philosophy, Race and Gender

AOC: Moral Psychology, Latin American Philosophy, 20th c. German Philosophy

[Gilbert Harman]

You don't have to use the labels "Areas of Specialization" "Areas of Competence" on your CV. You can describe yourself in whatever way seems best.

[Keith DeRose]

A quick follow-up to Jonathan Weinberg's above comment (May 29, 11:43 AM). He points out that one possible result of listing an area as an AOC is that, at an interview, you might be called on to discuss the area -- what you think about it, etc. I just want to add that one particular way this is likely to happen is that you're asked how you would teach a course in the area. (After all, many understand "AOC" to mean an area of teaching competence.) So, I think it's a good idea, for every area you list, to put some thought into how you would teach a course in the area: What topics you'd cover, what readings you'd assign, what books you'd order, etc. Don't let a question of that form take you by surprise. Some well-prepared candidates even bring sample syllabuses with them for the various courses they're selling themselves as ready to teach.

[Mark van Roojen]

Three comments in no particular order:

Gil's advice is correct, but it is worth noting there *might* be a downside to not using AOS or AOC on a CV at all. That's because some institutions may treat desiderata placed in the JFP ad as a necessary condition for being hired and the CV as dispositive about which AOSs and AOCs a candidate has. Most institutions would not do that (and I'm sure the best would not), but I think there are places where it might happen. So I would probably advise applicants to include both an AOS and AOC, but to feel free to add to the information provided using those terms. The use of "teaching competence" as distinct from AOCs (as Andrei B suggests) is one way to do that.

As a second comment, the advice I got when I went on the market was roughly the advice Brian originally describes - AOS is about research, and AOC is about what you can do a decent job teaching an upper-level undergraduate course in. Several people have noted above that these definitions may not work since in principle most of us could teach a lot of stuff pretty well if we worked at it. That's true, but I think it is important to realize that this advice is mostly going to people newly on the job market. At that stage of my career I was not so confident about my teaching that I would claim competence to teach an upper-level class in areas much beyond my actual familiarity with the subject matter and relevant literature. So I think this operational definition works well enough for its intended audience even if interpreted strictly it is probably false.

Finally, I have seen people stretch to include AOCs that they should not have claimed, and it often does not go well. It is reasonable to expect that a department that cares about whether candidates have a particular AOC will also do some checking, likely by pursuing the topic in an interview (if they interview).

[David Hunter]

"You don't have to use the labels "Areas of Specialization" "Areas of Competence" on your CV. You can describe yourself in whatever way seems best."

You are absolutely right Gilbert, but then that comes with the cost of seeming unaware of the conventions of the area.

I think that the Areas of Specialisation and Competence are effectively a short cut for those reading your CV. Whatever you claim in either area ought to be obvious from reading the rest of your CV. In other words if you claim something as an Area of Competence you should have had teaching or some research experience in your CV which evidences that claim.

I'm inclined to think that this is what should guide skepticism, if I saw a CV with 8 areas of competence and the individual had no relevant teaching experience or research experience I would think that they were indeed over-reaching. If I saw a CV with 8 areas of competence but that further through their CV I saw evidence of teaching experience or research in each of their claimed areas, then I would think the claim was fair.

Another related query which also touches on Nathan's question is at what level should you claim, i.e. should the claim be specific so supposing you were a Kant scholar focusing on his ethics should you say AOS Kant or AOS Kantian Ethics?

The danger of the first policy is that you may be asked about aspects of Kant you know nothing specialised about, the issue with the second policy is you look very narrow.

[Tim O'Keefe]

"Another related query which also touches on Nathan's question is at what level should you claim, i.e. should the claim be specific so supposing you were a Kant scholar focusing on his ethics should you say AOS Kant or AOS Kantian Ethics?"

I wouldn't put as an AOS 'Kantian Ethics.' I think your point above that AOS and AOC are basically useful shortcuts for people reading your CV is correct. Along those lines, it's probably safest to follow the common conventions regarding what categories to use for one's AOS/AOC--use the ones that appear repeatedly in the JFP (which also are more or less the ones used in the PGR's 'Breakdown of Programs by Specialties').

So I list (and have always listed) my AOS as 'Ancient Philosophy,' not 'Epicurus,' even straight out of grad school when the vast majority of my research and writing was on Epicurus. If I had listed my AOS as 'Epicurus,' I suspect that most places looking for an ancient specialist would have thought I was some sort of weirdo and given me a pass.

No reasonable person on a hiring committee is going to be put off or think that you're misrepresenting yourself if you use one of the common categories (like 'Ancient Philosophy') but can't discuss much the latest research on e.g., Plotinus or Heraclitus. If you get to the point of having an interview, people will have looked at the rest of your CV carefully and seen what your research interests are in particular from your list of papers and presentations, your research statement, etc.

One common strategy I've seen is to split the difference by leading off with one of the broader common categories and then briefly indicating one's primary focus in that area e.g., "AOS: Ethics (especially medical ethics)" or "AOS: Philosophy of Mind, Moral Psychology (especially free will and responsibility)."