On the earlier thread, philosopher Gary Kemp (Glasgow) asks:
When I was coming up in the 1990s, the complaints were: Pressure/requirements to publish, and overspecialisation. I take it that the readers here think this has grown worse. What sort of evidence do we have?
This is a good question, and I'll open it for discussion. I also "came up" in the 1990s, and it does seem to me that publication prior to entering the job market is almost de rigeur in a way it was not thirty years ago. Specialization is more difficult to assess. Specialization is the hallmark of the modern academy, as Weber observed more than a century ago, and it stands to reason that as more and more universities produce more and more scholars, the need to specialize even further (in order to make the proverbial "contribution to knowledge") will grow. But that isn't exactly "evidence" for the phenomenon, just a reason for thinking it would occur. Readers comments welcome. Submit your comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.
