A senior philosopher out West writes:
The thread on TAR on "Philosophical Perspectives" and related issues
raises many very important and complex questions. The roles of
institutional affiliation and "connections" are very significant in
various areas of our profession, although they sometimes work in
subtle ways. A more thorough exploration of the VARIOUS ways in
which graduate school affiliation and connections to visible,
influential philosophers help to frame one's possibilities in our
profession would be interesting to me.
Just to start: note that those of us who have families--young
children (or even not-so-young children)--or who live on the west
coast or really anywhere apart from the NY metropolitan area--have
significantly harder times attending conferences. Since we cannot
attend so many conferences, colloquia, reading groups, and so forth,
we cannot "impress people in person." That is, I have often heard it
said that certain philosophers, although they do not write much or
have not influenced the profession much through their writing, are
"very impressive in person." Well, if you can't go to the
conferences, colloquia, and so forth which are the "stages" or
contexts for impressing the relevant people, one is at a considerable
disadvantage. This really seems to be important in the hiring
practices of the most elite departments these days, and it works
against those of us who have families or live in areas where there
are fewer opportunities for attendance and participation. Also,
having a youngish family makes it considerably harder to go off to a
prestigious institute or to take a fellowship which requires
residence.
In general, the hiring practices of the profession at the senior
level seem to be changing: less emphasis is put on quality of work
and impact over time, and more emphasis seems to be put on whether
someone is "impressive" in participating in conferences, discussions,
and so forth. In some ways this is good, as the "oral tradition" is
an important part of philosophy, and some extremely good philosophers
simply don't write much, but have a salutary influence on the
profession through their conversations. But in some ways this is
bad, exacerbating what is already a significant (although perhaps not
always decisive) role of institutional affiliation and connections.
Comments are open; no anonymous postings. (Occasionally, readers ask why I require non-anonymous postings in response to an anonymous set of comments. Lack of anonymity leads posters to be more responsible, I have found, and it also makes it possible for readers, sometimes, to interpret the poster's remarks in light of what they know about his/her institutional affiliation, background, interests, and so on. In the case of the comments quoted above, I of course know the identity of the philosopher making these remarks, and while others are deprived of relevant background information that might affect their interpretation of these remarks, I thought them interesting enough standing alone to solicit reactions.)
