Should a Philosophy Grad Student at a Non-Anglophone University Write His/Her Dissertation in English?

A graduate student at a German university writes:

I am a philosophy student at [a university in Germany] and will start with my PhD thesis soon. Because I am contemplating heavily whether I should write it in English or not, I have the following question for the philosophical community - and I guess/hope that it will be of great interest for many of the Leiter Reports' readers outside the English-speaking world:

"Imagine your philosophy department - in the English-speaking world - has a free postdoctoral position and it is up to you to decide who will get the job. Do you take into account a candidate who has published in, say, German, French or Spanish? Do you hold in esteem a paper in the, e.g., "Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung" at all? Has a candidate who has written (and published) his PhD thesis  in a foreign language any real chance to get the job? Thanks a lot for your comments!"

My guess is that a lot depends on the area of philosophy in which the student is writing.  While historians of philosophy are often actively engaged with scholarship in languages other than English, this seems to me, at least anecdotally, to be much more rare among those working in various contemporary fields, from philosophy of language to ethics to epistemology.  In consequence, a German student working in, say, philosophy of mind would probably encounter a very basic obstacle to being taken seriously in Anglophone departments, namely, the inability of most philosophers to read the work.  What do others think?  Usual rules on comments apply. 

Comments

[Ralph Wedgwood]

Ich empfehle diesem Studenten oder dieser Studentin, so dringend wie möglich, alle philosophische Werke auf englisch zu schreiben. Nur die wenigsten englischsprachigen Philosophen machen die geringste Mühe, in fremden Sprachen verfasste philosophische Aufsätze zu lesen. Es mag für Deutsche schwer zu glauben sein, aber eigentlich kennen die meisten englischsprachigen Philosophen überhaupt keine Fremdsprache. Wenn sie überhaupt eine Fremdsprache kennen, so ist es eher französisch oder spanisch als deutsch. Deutsch verstehen nur diejenigen, die die Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie erforschen – und auch viele von diesen Historikern der Philosophie besitzen in meiner Erfahrung nicht gerade imponierende Kenntnisse der deutschen Sprache. (In dieser Hinsicht bin ich selbst möglicherweise ein irreführendes Beispiel!)

Dagegen verstehen fast alle, die sich beruflich mit der Philosophie beschäftigen, ungeachtet ihrer Muttersprache ziemlich gut englisch. Die Schlussfolgerung ist deshalb klar: Wenn man überhaupt will, dass seine philosophische Arbeit heutzutage gelesen werde, so sollte man auf englisch veröffentlichen!

[Brian]

For all those non-German readers about whom Ralph is writing, here's the short translation: publish in English if you want to be read by Anglophone philosophers! Ralph is the exception, alas, who proves the rule.

[n.n.]

I am a German post-doc still living in Germany. I think Ralph Wedgwood is right in that nobody (outside Germany) will take any notice of what you are doing unless you publish in English. Nonetheless, you should consider publishing in good German journals and with good publishers as well if you want to keep your options open to make a career in Germany. That is at least what I was told when I made it pretty obvious that I intend to publish my works in English for the reasons already mentioned and others.

[J. Edward Hackett]

I think for too long Anglophone departments have been rather stuck on our inability to engage philosophical texts in languages outside English. This is a shortcoming not on the German student's part, but for many North American departments to realize that philosophy occurs in more than one language (coupled with the fact that we should probably stop substituting language PhD requirements if the student can do logic). I dare not trace this back to the ole' divide, though certainly that may be one of many factors of why North American philosophers have assumed that our language is the only language in which philosophy occurs.

[Jan Sprenger]

I would advise you very much to write in English, for the reasons Ralph has given, at least if you work in the analytic tradition. (I have just submitted my own thesis at the University of Bonn -- in English -- and it was definitely the right decision.)

First, the better part of German analytic philosophy publishes in English, too. Second, you have nothing to win by an article in "Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung" or the like, neither in Germany nor abroad. Try to publish in top (or at least quality) journals of your discipline, e.g. if you are a philosopher of science, aim for BJPS, P/S, Synthese, possibly Erkenntnis, etc. Third, the German philosophy market is not too big, and if you aim for an academic career, you must consider to move abroad sooner or later anyway.

Finally, writing all your stuff in English will help you to connect to the research community, i.e. you can send papers/replies/discussion to non-German philosophers, etc. It is like Latin in the Middle Ages -- just the language of the profession. Denying to use it is a fallacy which, unfortunately, a lot of philosophers in Germany commit.

[Max]

I am a student of philosophy and I have at least basic knowledge of six languages (Latin and Ancient Greek not counted in). I grew up with two languages simultaneously (German and Croatian or whatever you call it) and have lived longer time in English-speaking countries. However, I would never dare to write in any other than my native or my working AND living language, especially not in philosophy. To really express what you are thinking requires you to have brilliant knowledge of the language that you are writing in. That is able to achieve but certainly not for English when studying in, say, Frankfurt. Quite a few of my collegues have started writing their papers in English and when I read them I always get the feeling that their English is a lot more worse than my English, being the very person who tried to convince them to not write in English.
Learning a language is always a good thing, it makes your mind a lot more open, learning about different cultures also makes you somewhat smarter. If we turn this around it would mean that not learning foreign languages does not offer you those opportunities. In the long run, this will become a major problem for the English speaking world besides of the English language being ruined by too many people speaking and writing it who do not really know what it is all about. This is no offence, I simply find that there are too many English works out there that are in fact poorly written.
Even though Latin was the language of science for a long time one should remember that the really impressive works from the 17th century on were written in Latin AND other languages if in Latin at all. Not writing in Latin any more was a symbol of freedom and a proove of their revolutionary thinking. Not those that simply do what they are told to are the ones we remember--and obviously, philosophers are always writing with the next few centuries in mind :)

[Konrad Talmont-Kaminski]

After having received my PhD in Australia I am now working in Poland and I find that quite consistently the best junior Polish philosophers are capable of writing in English and, to a greater or lesser degree, do so. I think that it is essential that they do it even if they are not considering moving to a university in an English speaking country. This is because English happens to be the language that 'the conversation' of modern analytical philosophy is taking place in. A great example of a country whose philosophers made the switch a while ago is Finland - a powerhouse within English language philosophy despite its small size and radically different native tongue.