A senior philosopher wrote with
the following interesting observations about "the changing sociology of
the field," with particular regard to philosophy of language:
When I was in graduate school [in the 1960s], papers delivered to philosophy departments were almost always read out by the speaker from a typescript. This practice reflected a conception of the field in which it was judged important never to make a mistake—even if this was accomplished by saying little and saying it unintelligibly. This is changing of course, and some prominent younger philosophers are overturning this and other established practices and established ideas of philosophy. This generation is likely to see creativity and provocativeness as more important than being anal about every little detail, and this goes with publishing more and more flamboyantly rather than publishing little and conservatively. Another interesting generational change: the older generation had a myth of the brilliant loner producing insights out of the blue, whereas the younger generation is more communitarian, focusing more about projects that emerge out of group discussions. Another change in philosophy of language in particular is that the younger generation in philosophy of language thinks that philosophical mileage can be gotten out of linguistic facts in a way alien to many older philosophers. And in philosophy of mind and even ethics, there is much more emphasis on empirical work. These developments are not unconnected since practices in linguistics and psychology are much more communitarian than has been the case in philosophy.
Comments are open for other perspectives on these changes, both the extent to which my correspondent has accurately captured them, and the extent to which we should view them as good developments. As usual, non-anonymous comments are preferred, and comments may take awhile to appear, so post only once.
