It is not very difficult to give undergraduates advice about where they might pursue graduate study without egregiously insulting large numbers of your professional colleagues.
But then how to explain the ubiquity things like this not unrepresentative post by Spiros?*
In the context of a very nice post about an exceptional department, Professor Leiter claims: "The term 'pluralism'** has, alas, been debased to the point that everyone now knows it is usually a code word for 'crappy philosophy is welcome here'."
That's accurate, but a little too generous! For one thing, it understates the self-congratulation with which the term is deployed, and well as the ways in which it is wielded in order to deceive those most vulnerable in our profession.
I realize that many of our judgments of concerning philosophical work are somewhere between full-bore cognitive judgments and Kantian judgments of taste rather than judgments of things you happen to find agreeable. I mean, my distaste for a philosophical view or text is not the same as my distaste for bitter vegetables. And that's fine!
But, again, it's just not very difficult construe one's beliefs about philosophical value as full bore cognitive while at the same time being humble about those very beliefs. But why do so many of us find this difficult?
In general, we should as much as possible follow the following three defeasible assumptions:
- If you are a professor, professors at other universities and are your colleagues, members of the same guild,
- If you are a graduate student, the same holds of graduate students at other universities,
- People we disagree with (in or out of our department) about philosophical positions, texts, or paradigms are in general both informed and of good will. It is extraordinarily important that our behavior reflect this awareness.
Like Jaded Philosopher (e.g. here) it seems obvious to me that lack of humility with respect to your own philosophical paradigm and figures very easily translates into intolerance and bullying.
Moreover, I don't think that it is possible to sympathetically read the beautiful concluding chapter of Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy without agreeing with Jaded Philosopher on this. For people who haven't read the Russell, note that he takes two of the main virtues of philosophy to be that it inculcates the epistemic virtue of being radically open to new possibilities and also that it engenders a kind of humility that is in fact a general moral virtue. If you find Russell compelling then it's all the more of a drag when you see people using philosophy like male rams use their horns.
But what about the children, whom it is our duty to save from cognitive depravity? Well, first please just consider how much egregiously horrible social policy comes out of a desire to "protect the children." With respect to anyone who might take seriously Spiros' cranky quote above, just note that if in your desire to protect new graduate students you end up by example teaching them that a big part of philosophy is mocking people whom you disagree with, then you are the problem.***
Again, just check out Russell. The relevant discussion is on-line here.****
[Note:
*Who would enjoy the video to right, but would have liked this one better. Sorry man, we'll always have the final track on evillive with Glenn and Henry jointly affirming their numerical identity.
**Full disclosure. I am happy to describe my own department as pluralist with no use of scare quotes, and I'm also happy to be here. If you want to take what I write with a grain of salt as a result, that's fine. As Rollins notes above, "I still feel alright."
***Who are in their twenties, but issues involving heteronomy and autonomy with respect to faculty responsibilities to graduate students is a topic for another set of posts.
****Any time I post on anything relating to the vituperativeness of the analytic-continental divide, I get lots of e-mails from people all over the map, some of them are quite angry. Let me say a few things: (1) I am not speaking for anyone else at Newapps; yes, we are all individuals, and (2) I'm a terrible, terrible e-mail correspondent. Please, if the above prompts you to write me, just say it here instead, as non-vituperatively as possible. If you have tenure, say it here with your own name. If you're tenure track without tenure, then use a consistent handle. If you're not tenure track, then feel free to be anonymous or use different handles. Or don't say anything. It's all copecetic. Or rather it should be.]
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