Usually known as the AAAS, every observer knows what it mostly is, as conveyed in the title of this post: it is friends electing friends for "honor" ostensibly for their academic contributions. The AAAS is not meaningless, to be sure, and its sins are mostly ones of omission, as I've remarked previously, as well as current fashions. Past philosophy members of the AAAS, no doubt eminent and well-connected in their time, include Harry Berger, Francis Bowen, John Cobb, Jr., Irwin Edman, John Fiske, Levi Hedge, Laurens Hickock, Henry Mansel, James McCosh, James Pratt, James L. Walker, Richard Whately, and James H. Woods, among others that are probably unknown to most contemporary philosophers.
Elections to the Academy follow certain patterns. For example, in 2012, MIT's Stephen Yablo was elected to the Academy. The following year, his MIT colleague Rae Langton (now at Cambridge) was elected. Two years later, Langton's friend and former colleague, and Yablo's spouse, Sally Haslanger at MIT was elected. Haslanger (well-known, of course, for her commitment to diversity [vide Reed for an explanation]), quickly joined the selection committee for Philosophy, and that year only one white man (in his 70s) was elected while two prominent feminist philosophers were among the small number of honorees. The latter is hardly suspicious: I've observed the same patterns over the years with formal philosophers, with epistemologists, and with Kant scholars--once one gets in, others in that sub-field are admitted in the subsequent years. As one AAAS member wrote to me a couple of years ago: "newly admitted members are often energized to make nominations," and, unsurprisngly, they invest that effort in their friends and colleagues.
But if there was ever a "popularity contest," it would be the AAAS, in which existing members vote on possible new members on a scale of 1-5 (just like the PGR scale for whole faculties!). Ballotting proceeds in two stages. Any two members can nominate someone for election to the Academy of Friends, and after an initial round of voting, 8-10 candidates are submitted to the membership for final votes. The "panel" is, I'm told, bound by the votes of the existing members, except when there are "diversity" considerations. The current panel consists of Susan Wolf (North Carolina, the chair), Julia Annas (Arizona) Sally Haslanger (MIT), Dan Hausman (Wisconsin), Beatrice Longuenesse (NYU), and Stephen Stich (Rutgers). The Chair of the panel must ultimately negotiate with chairs of other humanities committees over how many philosophers get to be put forward for membership.
A current Academy of Friends member sent me the list of the current first-round candidates. This was against the rules, but I suspect that s/he was concerned about the way things have been going. I will not name any of the nominees.
Understand that most faculty who are elected to the Academy are 60 or older; in philosophy, faculty who are elected around age 50 or younger are few and far between (examples would include, in recent years, David Chalmers [NYU] and John MacFarlane [Berkeley], and, in years past, David Lewis and Martha Nussbaum). Excluding faculty who were clearly nominated in cognate disciplines, and then put on the philosophy ballot for possible "interdisciplinary" inclusion, there were 31 pure philosophy candidates.
15 of those candidates were women, 16 were men. That's already remarkable given that only about 20% of senior philosophy faculty are women. Of those 15 women, two were also racial or ethnic minorities, and a remarkable 9 of the 15 were feminist philosophers and "friends of Sally," as it were. Of the 16 men, 3 were also racial or ethnic minorities. Out of 31 nominated candidates, there were 13 white men. Of the nominated women, 9 of the 15 were faculty members at top 50 PhD programs. Of the nominated men, 16 of 16 were at top 50 PhD programs. Of the nominated women, two were over the age of 70; of the nominated white men, three were over 70. Of the nominated women, five, maybe six, are under 60; of the nominated white men, two, maybe three, are under 60.
We shall see what happens in the end, but I confess to being somewhat surprised by the slate of candidates on the first ballot. There are some excellent nominees, both men and women, minorities and non-minorities, and perhaps those are the ones who will prevail. We shall find out in a few months.
ADDENDUM: Another AAAS member writes: "In the first round, only philosophers vote for philosophers. In the last round, however, the whole membership votes and can vote for people outside their official fields. That means that a 'Humanities' scholar reviled by philosophers can in principle be voted in by comp lit people. One of the uncodified aspects of the final ballot is how to weight votes by voters outside the official field of the candidate. This is one matter in which the views of the Chair will normally determine the result."
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