tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post5212866808020489700..comments2023-08-08T00:37:45.098-07:00Comments on A Philosophy Job Market Blog: Words, Like Violence, Break the SilencePseudonymous Grad Studenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00627480292942427387noreply@blogger.comBlogger119125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-59373231608102627692008-01-16T19:05:00.000-08:002008-01-16T19:05:00.000-08:00Look. If you're suggesting that the PGR has no inf...<I>Look. If you're suggesting that the PGR has no influence, or that it doesn't have much influence, you're wrong. It does.</I><BR/><BR/>That's not even remotely what I'm saying. Of course it has influence, and it can have significant influence. It greatly affects which departments the best students end up at. It partially influences how younger faculty think about the relative strengths of programs (but I listed other things that are significant influences as well).<BR/><BR/>What I was arguing wasn't the irrelevance of lack of influence of the PGR. My point was that we've heard of top philosophers for reasons that were true about why people had heard of top philosophers long before there was a PGR. The main way certain names get seen as top is via the selection of papers and books for reading in graduate programs and the selection of who you've seen or heard about giving talks where. You don't need to know a thing about the PGR to get a sense of who is good in fields you know something about. I certainly didn't when I was applying to grad school 12 years ago. I knew some of the top names in the fields I knew the most about, and I could look at certain top departments' lists of faculty and see that they had some good people. If I hadn't seen the PGR during grad school, my list of who I thought were top figures wouldn't be a lot different from what it is, because that list is based on the people whose work I thought was good and the people whose work my professors thought was good.<BR/><BR/>It's at the lower end that the PGR is much less reliable and is indeed dependent on the biases of the rankers. Philosophy of religion, applied ethics, philosophy of race and gender, and other niche areas that don't get a lot of attention from those outside the field do attract some excellent philosophers who largely get ignored. William Rowe is a brilliant philosophers who pretty much only does philosophy of religion. In a sense it's ok to ignore him to the extent that people who don't care about philosophy of religion don't bother to read his work, but in another sense it's stupid to ignore it if you're not concerned about mere reputation but are concerned about good philosophy and good training of students. The same is true of Tommie Shelby (to mention someone whose name has come up on this blog recently). He's excellent at what he does, and most philosophers pay little attention to what he does.<BR/><BR/>As to why someone would care about research reputation, the issue that's most pertinent is whether you can land an adviser who will be viewed as excellent in your field by search committees. The PGR does pay attention to things relevant for that, even if it's less reliable as a guide to what people at teaching schools would think of the reputations of various advisers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-69889096629352377632008-01-16T16:05:00.000-08:002008-01-16T16:05:00.000-08:00Look. If you're suggesting that the PGR has no inf...Look. If you're suggesting that the PGR has no influence, or that it doesn't have <I>much</I> influence, you're wrong. It does.<BR/><BR/>Furthermore, if you're basing your opinion of NYU's current reputation on work produced and opinions formed prior to the PGR's inception, you're making use of some very old news. I'd be very shocked if <I>current</I> opinions of faculty reputation were not closely tied to the rankings. Even on this blog, people talk about their "leiterrific"-ness as a matter of course, as though everyone knows what it means. <BR/><BR/>Maybe NYU was a bad example. Do you have an opinion about Arizona State? Why is it ranked at 44, when Boston University is ranked at 50? Why is South Carolina just an honorable mention? Why isn't Vanderbilt on there at all? <BR/><BR/>Just to be clear, I wonder why you'd care about research-oriented reputations of faculty when choosing a grad school. I was more interested in the quality of training I'd get, and whether I'd get a job afterwards. I was interested in the first factor only insofar as it was correlated to the other two, and the PGR itself admits that this correlation is poor. <BR/><BR/>And, if you were interested in the research-oriented reputations of the faculty, why wouldn't you be much, much more interested in the <I>actual quality</I> of the research? Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I find myself more interested in the actual quality of research than in the quality of the reputation of the philosopher who produced it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-13400553196921190082008-01-16T14:34:00.000-08:002008-01-16T14:34:00.000-08:00I haven't heard of the people at NYU because of th...I haven't heard of the people at NYU because of the PGR. I've heard of them because professors who have been around much longer than the PGR have selected their papers and books for readings in classes I took and because faculty at NYU have been giving talks at places I've been, talks which have been selected at least in part by people who were around long before the PGR and people who were strongly influenced by people who were around long before the PGR.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-67005191384350083782008-01-15T10:51:00.000-08:002008-01-15T10:51:00.000-08:00Anon 5:57I agree with you that the Leiter Rankings...Anon 5:57<BR/><BR/>I agree with you that the Leiter Rankings and the Chronicle Widget measure different things. And I agree with you that the Chronicle Widget is a deeply imperfect tool for measuring what it measures.<BR/><BR/>I disagree with you about whether the PGR does a great job of measuring what it measures. If you want to do a survey, and you want the results to be meaningful, you can't just ask the same people every time. The sample has to be random so that it will represent the population at large, and there's no reason to think that Leiter's sample is or does. Look at the list. They all went to and teach in highly-ranked departments. And they're selected by recommendation by other people who already participate, so that's a problem, too. <BR/><BR/>Your final paragraph suggests a further problem. Suppose you look at a list of NYU's faculty. You've heard of all these guys. Why? Because of the PGR. You also know that all these guys have great reputations as researchers. Why? Because of the PGR. You know this even if you don't know any details about almost all of these people at all. And then when some nobody joins NYU's department, you're going to assume that he has a great research reputation, too. But somebody who joins Rochester, or Kentucky, or whatever won't enjoy such a presumption. This is why I think the PGR has a self-perpetuating effect.<BR/><BR/>If it's hard to say what the Chronicle Widget measures, it's doubly hard to say what the PGR measures. Look, I'm not a real professor or anything, but I'm not at all sure I'm capable of rating any department, <I>as a whole</I>, in terms of their research. I could probably say a thing or two about the people who work in my area, but the rest of the people would be unknowns, even if I'd heard of them before. Everybody but the biggest names would require a fair amount of research on my part before I could say how good I think their research is. So, supposing we're rating 50 departments plus 10 also-rans, and supposing that a typical department as 15 or 20 people, that's a huge amount of research. I bet nobody does it. I bet they look at the list, recognize it as NYU or Yale or whatever, and give it a number. And I bet the number is deeply influenced by the fact that the PGR has been a fact of everyday life for philosophers for almost 15 years.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-75297402948562671412008-01-15T05:57:00.000-08:002008-01-15T05:57:00.000-08:00It's clear that the Gourmet Report and the Chronic...It's clear that the Gourmet Report and the Chronicle list are simply measuring different things. The PGR measures the reputation of departments among the most reputed departments. If it's taken merely to measure that, then it does a great job. If it's taken to measure the reputation of departments among the whole profession, it might be less reliable. If it's taken to measure graduate teaching, placement, and so on, it's probably unreliable. But reputation among the most reputed departments is a valuable measure. It describes an important social reality, if nothing else (and I don't think it's nothing else).<BR/><BR/>The Chronicle list does something very different. It measures pure numerical research output. It doesn't measure quality of research directly, although there is some attempt to get quality in there by measuring not number of publications but number of citations by other people. But it doesn't factor in which citations are by good people or by mainstream people or anything like that. You could have a whole fringe group all citing each other at unusually high frequency, and it would artificially elevate the rankings by that measure. In fact that's what a lot have argued has happened with that measure. Some of this depends on how you count applied ethics and other fringe sub-disciplines.<BR/><BR/>I happen to think applied ethics is very important, but I also think a lot of people writing in it aren't as good as in other fields that are viewed as more central (and thus have better standards for publication in better journals). There are a lot more places to publish applied ethics, and there are a lot more applied ethics publications than there are in phiolosophical logic or space-time metaphysics.<BR/><BR/>So it's very hard to be sure what the Chronicle list is even measuring. It's a different kind of popularity, one that's less elitist but also one that has much lower standards. I wouldn't call it more objective, for sure, but it does pretend to be more objective because it uses numbers without on its face making it obvious that the decisions about what numbers to use already display a whole bunch of false assumptions.<BR/><BR/>Look at the faculty for the departments at the top of the Chronicle list that aren't in the Leiter rankings at all. For most of those schools, you probably won't have heard about most of the faculty unless you work in their field. This is probably true of the bottom half of the Leiter rankings too, so that's no sign of not deserving being in the Gourmet list. But the top ten departments in the Gourmet report aren't like this. You'll have heard of most of the department even if you're not in their field, haven't read their stuff, and maybe even couldn't tell you what specifically they've done. That's an important difference that the PGR measures pretty well even if it isn't always perfect (e.g. one might argue that some of the best of the Chronicle list departments should be at least in the Gourmet Report).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-64958063630010645202008-01-15T04:54:00.000-08:002008-01-15T04:54:00.000-08:00' "So maybe you should take this as a sign that LS...' "So maybe you should take this as a sign that LSU is cutting-edge and savvy.' C'mon, it's LSU!"<BR/><BR/>I did say "maybe."<BR/><BR/>But on a more serious note: I've gone to well-known schools in big Eastern cities, and I know the appeal to rejecting everything in the heartland. But I've also been to some schools in the heartland, and some people would be surprised to learn that quality of life can be very good in some places you'd never think about if you grew up in New York or Washington. And the quality of faculty, and even instruction, can also be quite good at these places. So I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to LSU, despite my own unexamined and unwarranted prejudices about the Gulf Coast. (Note that lack of warrant for a belief is irrelevant to its truth status.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-506473446902590422008-01-14T20:58:00.000-08:002008-01-14T20:58:00.000-08:00"[T]he APA is almost completely impotent and refus..."[T]he APA is almost completely impotent and refuses to wield what little power it does have."<BR/><BR/>Sure, there's more than a little magic involved this way, too. However, I would like to think that the APA still consists of individual philosophers whose moral instincts -- I assume here that they are pragmatically utilitarians and not Kantians or what-not -- could be appealed to if there is enough of a hue and cry. The advantage of going through the APA is that they control the job market in a way no other institution does, and that these individual philosophers could be convinced to act, arguably, against the baser interests of their departments and for the good of some abstract group like 'the profession', or better yet, 'poor suffering graduate students' in their capacity as APA officers/members, something that is unlikely if they see themselves involved in this process <I>qua</I> members of those departments and are reminded of their duty to dragoon fresh crops of the unwitting.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-36902577313783771112008-01-14T20:36:00.000-08:002008-01-14T20:36:00.000-08:00I say the Leiter report is "baseless" because its ...I say the Leiter report is "baseless" because its methodology is to ask a bunch of people, almost all of whom attended grad school at top-10 programs and now teach at top-50 programs, what the overall research-related reputations of the top 50 departments are. But of course, reputations can be undeserved, and no attempt is made to correct for this or to connect the reputations to actual research activities. <BR/><BR/>The Chronicle of Higher Education has a widget that ranks programs according to the percentage of faculty who published a book last year; published journal articles last year; and whose work was cited in journal articles last year. This comes much closer to tracking <I>actual</I> research and is much less nebulous and bullshit as "reputation for research." Also, these rankings look really, really different from the Leiter rankings. <BR/><BR/>I strongly suspect that the Leiter report is self-perpetuating. It seems to me that, over the past 7 or 8 years, very little has changed with respect to the overall rankings, even though the rosters of the various ranked programs have changed wildly. I've seen some top-10 programs hemorrhage faculty while retaining at least top-20 status, while departments at the lower echelons seem stuck there no matter what they do. <BR/><BR/>Also, the "research reputation" of a department or of one's advisor, or even the <I>actual research productivity</I> is of dubious value to its Ph.D. students. The ability to train Ph.D. students as philosophers is of far greater importance, as is an ability to find jobs for the new Ph.D.s. <BR/><BR/>That's why I think the Leiter rankings are baseless.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-28842902760885601052008-01-14T20:24:00.000-08:002008-01-14T20:24:00.000-08:00"So maybe you should take this as a sign that LSU ..."So maybe you should take this as a sign that LSU is cutting-edge and savvy."<BR/><BR/>C'mon, it's LSU!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-21229433995287703962008-01-14T19:07:00.000-08:002008-01-14T19:07:00.000-08:00Although I am not crazy about the Leiter reports, ...Although I am not crazy about the Leiter reports, it does seem a bit ridiculous to call them "baseless" (or based on baseless opinions....I assume that baselessness is transitive such that if Leiter reports are based on baseless opinions then they're baseless).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-55865333576938608722008-01-14T18:27:00.000-08:002008-01-14T18:27:00.000-08:00outis:I like your idea. Of course, it will never w...outis:<BR/><BR/>I like your idea. Of course, it will never work: the APA is almost completely impotent and refuses to wield what little power it does have. <BR/><BR/>It would be nice if the Leiter Report itself were based on data like this, rather than baseless, self-reinforcing opinions about whose reputations are awesome and whose aren't.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-57844070495412823732008-01-14T17:58:00.000-08:002008-01-14T17:58:00.000-08:00Outis makes some great points, but I think instead...Outis makes some great points, but I think instead of banning non-cooperative schools, the APA might instead consider putting an asterisk next to their names... that seems to have stopped more serious transgressions, right...??James Rochahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10768870821066002106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-44092638597990128992008-01-14T16:48:00.000-08:002008-01-14T16:48:00.000-08:00PGS: "But there's no way to just make more jobs, s...PGS: "But there's no way to just make more jobs, so (IMHO) the right thing to do would be to train fewer grad students. I.e., take (to pick a random number out of my ass) the bottom quarter of PhD programs in philosophy, and turn them into terminal MA programs. But that's a rant for another time."<BR/><BR/>I was with you on the first sentence, but your solution is more magic than policy, whatever its merits. As some of this discussion has indicated, there's no one good metric for ranking schools <I>in relation to this specific problem</I>. For example, comparing placement records requires a secondary ranking of program quality, as the PGR provides, and one for the relative merits of different kinds of jobs. A more practicable response would be to ask institutions of all calibers to <I>each</I> train fewer students, especially those with prima facie poor placement records. I assume here that it is possible to pick out some of the worst offenders, but again, nearly every school seems to admit students with next to no shot of finishing the PhD, let alone getting a job.<BR/><BR/>The APA could publish a document which lists PhD programs in alphabetical order (a ranking based on a semi-arbitrary metric would be contentious and unnecessary) along with their absolute, unadulterated, raw admissions and placement data beyond the simple completion rate or time to PhD or a list of their most-successful candidates, including how many students <BR/><BR/>were admitted for the PhD<BR/>finished the PhD at that program<BR/>finished the PhD elsewhere<BR/>finished the PhD in the time prescribed by the program description (n years)<BR/>finished the PhD in more than 2+n years<BR/>left the program ABD<BR/>left the program with an MA<BR/>found permanent academic employment [2-yr, 4-yr] x [T-T, non-T-T] x [within 2 years of receipt of PhD, within 5]<BR/>found permanent non-academic employment/left the profession<BR/>enrolled in a graduate program in another discipline<BR/>...usw<BR/><BR/>The APA should ban institutions who don't provide this data from advertising in the JfP. The institutional burden shouldn't be great, since programs should keep tabs on their current and former students anyway. I'm sure this has already been suggested, but PGS' point that decent, navigable data online for even a handful of departments is hard to find makes me think that this is due to willful negligence of the well-being of their (prospective) indentured labourers. The APA has a responsibility to the profession to make this data public.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-13116469343171304162008-01-14T07:19:00.000-08:002008-01-14T07:19:00.000-08:00I have no connection to LSU, but since no one from...I have no connection to LSU, but since no one from there has posted, I'll take a stab at guessing the answer. It's probably like the other schools that have January deadlines: they don't see the need to fight for the folks who will be hot stuff at the APA. Wait until the flyouts start, then do their own cutting down among the many good candidates who are left. The ABDs and recent grads who got snubbed will be more modest, and the in-hands will have a better feel for where they stack up against the competition. Also, I think (though this is just an impression) that more schools are giving up the conference interviews. So maybe you should take this as a sign that LSU is cutting-edge and savvy.<BR/><BR/>Regarding the post in French, shouldn't it be M. Hadot rather than Mr. Hadot?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-8100460279429493602008-01-13T18:29:00.000-08:002008-01-13T18:29:00.000-08:00Anon 5:48Apparently, the profession owes us nothin...Anon 5:48<BR/><BR/>Apparently, the profession owes us nothing and has nothing to give us. When I was an undergraduate I was told, warned, cautioned, et cetera that I should only go to grad. school if there was nothing else I would rather do. I went. I received my stipend. I TA'd like a good boy. Thereafter, I started teaching my own courses at my home institution, and since the funds were deficient i started moonlighting elsewhere in the city. I taught nine different courses last year, and six the previous year. I'm behind on my diss. by at least two years. My friends who were undergrads when i started my Ph.D. now have homes and new cars. At least I have new books, right? Janaway's Beyond Selflessness is my new BMW. <BR/>Unfortunately, I cannot teach to the lowest common denominator. So i spend an inordinate amount of time on my syllabi, making sure everything is perfect. I spend too much time choosing my books. They have to be the right books--or else--or else I am failing my students. Blah, blah, blah.<BR/><BR/>But you know what? Every morning I wake up I am excited that I am studying philosophy (not quite bold enough to call myself a philosopher). I love philosophy. So with my mediocre students (i love them too), unfinished diss. (i'll finish it this year come hell or high water), and a disgruntled adviser (he'll be pleased at the end), I am a lifer in this game. As 50 says, do philosophy or die trying. Ummm, a tt job would be nice though. ha,ha!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-16821622757899506922008-01-13T18:12:00.000-08:002008-01-13T18:12:00.000-08:00Presumably "a student in Nimes" can read English, ...Presumably "a student in Nimes" can read English, so why doesn't he/she write in it?<BR/><BR/>Anyway, let me see if I got this right:<BR/><BR/>"Mr 'Hadot' (and I suppose you are referring to Pierre Hadot, a French philosopher whose views resemble your pwn), what do you expect? Whenever I read Anglo-American philosophy I am struck by the same thought: what an enormous waste of time! [a reference to Wittgenstein??] It reminds me of the scene in "Waiting for Godot" when Lucky is made to 'think' aloud by Pozzo. The result is a flow of pedantic, senseless garbage - absolute shit. In truth, I hesitate to call it philosophy, since it is sterile, dead, without spirit. It only concerns itself with trivial details, never with important things, things that matter. There is no beauty or life or seriousness in it. Perhaps the dysfunction of your profession is simply a reflection of the kind of philosophy you practice!"<BR/><BR/>Ouch. Hey "etudiant," even if what you say about Anglo-American philosophy is true, please understand that not everyone who studies philosophy in America studies Anglo-American philosophy. My guess is that someone with "Hadot's" views is probably NOT doing hardcore analytic M&E. Just a suspicion. (He also mentions Nehemas, who has a somewhat amusing quote somewhere about how Daniel Dennett [or Paul Churchland or someone like that] would never give up his life in defense of reductive materialism, and that this is what distinguishes contemporary [analytic?] philosophers from the noble 'philoi sophias' of antiquity.) <BR/><BR/>I'm very sympathetic to Hadot's point of view, by the way, though I agree that he's letting his anger/frustration/disillusionment get the better of him. Not very becoming of someone who views philosophy as a "spiritual practice" (as opposed to the dude who was prattling on about philosophy being a job, and how people who see it as anything other than a job are pervious to exploitation. LOL.)<BR/><BR/>I think one's job = what one does in order to make a living. If you think about it, the universities and colleges are mainly paying us to teach, not to philosophize. Our departments may force us to philosophize for the sake of RETAINING our jobs, but let's face it - our JOBS qua employees of educational institutions are primarily TEACHING JOBS. Our "research" has little relevance outside the profession, which itself is a mostly fictional entity and arbitrary entity that would cease to exist without the implicit financial/institutional support of the colleges and universities. <BR/><BR/>If this is true, then my "job" is something other than "professional philosopher." It's something more like "university professor" or "instructor of philosophy" or whatever. Being a philosopher IS more of a vocation, whether we think of it in terms of living a certain way or belonging to a certain extra-institutional community (i.e., the "profession") or whatever. I think one can be a philosophy teacher without being a philosopher...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-58044939776411853082008-01-13T18:01:00.000-08:002008-01-13T18:01:00.000-08:00Society in general owes them nothing.Society in general owes them nothing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-79685169894642342342008-01-13T17:48:00.000-08:002008-01-13T17:48:00.000-08:00no one has answered the question, what does societ...no one has answered the question, what does society owe a phd who has slaved away that last 5 years of their life?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-36055804629785720982008-01-13T17:33:00.000-08:002008-01-13T17:33:00.000-08:00Hadot,I would suggest taking a more, erm, philosop...Hadot,<BR/><BR/>I would suggest taking a more, erm, <I>philosophical</I> attitude about the flaws you see in departments of philosophy. First, there was never any reason to expect that philosophy as a way of life would find a friendly home in the academy. Second, even if that's incorrect, philosophy as a way of life won't be killed by the professionalization of the academic discipline of philosophy--it will just happen outside the discipline (or inside it, but only <I>per accidens</I>). Second of all, even if <I>that's</I> incorrect, your anger at the phenomenon is helping neither you nor others. Perhaps you would benefit from revisiting the writings of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-57522850152518755492008-01-13T17:21:00.000-08:002008-01-13T17:21:00.000-08:00Anon 4:30, you're right, that one took 7 days and ...Anon 4:30, you're right, that one took 7 days and ended on 100. This one is within the 2nd day and past it. <BR/><BR/>But of course, Fodder, you're right too: it's only because of extreme bitterness that it has gotten this high this fast. <BR/><BR/>In a way it's sad, but ain't it also kinda fun? Watching the meaningless squabbles of others is a guilty pleasure, at least until they start doing their fighting in French. Now who does that serve?James Rochahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10768870821066002106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-14294595759819197092008-01-13T16:31:00.000-08:002008-01-13T16:31:00.000-08:00In response to James, see here.Notice the differen...In response to James, see <A HREF="http://philosophyjobmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/king-volcano-gave-me-numbers.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>.<BR/><BR/>Notice the difference in tone and substance between that thread and this one. Is it just me, or have the comments on this blog become decidedly more bitter and unpleasant post-APA?<BR/><BR/>Part of this has to do with the waiting game we're all playing right now, coupled with feelings of rejection and despair. I myself have found this period to be far more anxiety-inducing than early/mid December while I was waiting for interviews. My options then seemed far greater than they are now.<BR/><BR/>So let's be a bit more reflective, people. With its characteristic irreverence and self-deprecating wit, I'd always found this a useful and cathartic forum for letting off steam. Sure, we deserve an outlet to vent, but I'm not sure some of the feelings currently voiced on this blog are healthy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-45981283746912877152008-01-13T16:30:00.000-08:002008-01-13T16:30:00.000-08:00I believe it was the thread on the influence of th...I believe it was the thread on the influence of the rankings on hiring practices. But it didn't get there this quickly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-66333078143673479552008-01-13T16:10:00.000-08:002008-01-13T16:10:00.000-08:00Has there been a thread on this blog that had 100 ...Has there been a thread on this blog that had 100 comments before? And if so, was it also based mainly on bickering?James Rochahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10768870821066002106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-55157506671683760852008-01-13T15:52:00.000-08:002008-01-13T15:52:00.000-08:00Mr. "Hadot" (et je suppose que vous faites référen...Mr. "Hadot" (et je suppose que vous faites référence à Pierre Hadot, un philosophe français dont les vues sont semblables à vous-même), qu'est-ce que vous attendez?<BR/>Chaque fois que je lis la philosophie anglo-américaine je suis frappé par la même pensée: ce qu'est une énorme perte de temps! <BR/>Cela me rappelle la scène dans "En Attendant Godot" quand Lucky est faite à "penser" à haute voix par Pozzo. Le résultat est un flux de pédant, de sens des ordures - merde absolue. En vérité, j'ai même hésité à l'appeler la philosophie, parce qu'elle est si stérile, morte, sans âme. Elle ne s'intéresse qu'à des détails futiles, et jamais avec des choses importantes, des choses qui comptent. Il n'ya pas de beauté ou de la vie ou de gravité dans celui-ci. Peut-être que le dysfonctionnement de votre profession est simplement un reflet de la sorte de philosophie que vous pratiquez!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1944513327283802005.post-60096337108344406412008-01-13T15:21:00.000-08:002008-01-13T15:21:00.000-08:00Nlah blah blah. Do yourselves a favor and read up ...Nlah blah blah. Do yourselves a favor and read up on the history of philosophy - and by that I don't mean the history of philosophical theories and ideas, but the history of philosophy as a human practice. There are surely some sciences which have benefited from institutionalization, professionalization, hyper-specialization, etc. etc. Philosophy isn't one of them. All of the nonsense on this blog is symptomatic of a larger disease which has been killing philosophy for nearly two centuries. We live in what Nehemas calls the "Age of the Professors." The age of the philosophers is mostly gone. We're all a bunch of poseurs.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com