Thread by @Helenreflects

Tomorrow I will be part of a panel on prestige and inclusion in Anglo-American philosophy (with @Etienne_Brown @RebeccaBamford and Thierry Ngosso.
Here are some late night thoughts on the following puzzle:
Why don't we have an international philosophical community? 1/

@Etienne_Brown @RebeccaBamford It is remarkable to see how fractured the philosophical community is. I have worked and lived in 4 countries: Belgium, The Netherlands, the UK, and the US. And in those 4 (wealthy, western) countries, there are distinct philosophical communities, but overall ... 2/

Little in the way of collaborations. If you look beyond western countries, things look even bleaker. As a little test, try to think of names of philosophers working in two African countries with a lively philosophical tradition: Ghana and South Africa. How many can you name? 3/

My guess is: not many. My personal experience has been that while it is still common for philosophers from Anglo-American departments to collaborate with, e.g., colleagues from continental Europe, you get almost no collaborations w Africa, Asia, few w Latin America. Why not? 4/

It is not, one might think because of a lack of interest in philosophical traditions in these places. Indeed, lesser-taught philosophical traditions are in at the moment, and it is an advantage to be able to teach, e.g., Latinx or Africana philosophy 5/

However, this interest in lesser-taught or non-western philosophy is not matched with currency that matters a lot in Anglo-American departments, namely prestige. It is not prestigious to engage with philosophers, or philosophies outside of western, English-speaking countries 6/

Looking at recent issues of general journals (the most prestigious journals), it is still rare to see papers in lesser-taught philosophical traditions. Maybe Ergo, Phil Imprint, Metaphilosophy, but a lot of conspicuous actors (e.g., Nous) largely absent. 7/

There is thus some incentive to e.g., teach Latinx or Africana philosophy but little incentive to immerse oneself so much into it that one would be able to write papers in it. After all, who would publish it? One's options are slim and not very marketable 8/

It seems to me (maybe @BryanVanNorden or @shengokai can speak to this) that acquiring some competence in a lesser-taught tradition is still very risky as an AOS for early-career people. This encourages and incentivizes insularity in Anglo-American philosophy. 9/

We can quantify this. Because publications in the most prestigious venues in academic philosophy (overwhelmingly by Anglo-American philosophers) are so insular, they don't really need to engage with works from other countries or traditions 10/ tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

As @eschwitz summarizes "97% of citations are citations of work originally written in English; 96% of members of editorial boards of elite Anglophone philosophy journals are housed in majority-Anglophone countries". 11/

This is because of what @nescio13 calls the "credit economy" of academic philosophy, e.g., "Professional philosophy is best compared to a credit economy with currency controls". Where we try to curry favor with prestigious individuals and departments 12/
digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimp…

If it's important to be pals with bigname philosophers from the most prestigious departments (which are all anglophone, and mostly American and British departments), then there is no incentive for us to globalize philosophy 13/

Now, a personal note, with @marcusarvan I have a long-running series entitled The Cocoon Goes Global. We feature personal testimonies of people who work in departments outside of the anglophone west.
philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/the-cocoo… 14/

Running this initiative has been a very sobering experience. I just want to note a few things (please do read through these--it is an ongoing project and we aim to cover many more countries). I did not expect how challenging it would be, and how eye-opening 15/

First, it is striking how large the variability is of support for philosophers between different countries. E.g., South Korea, Colombia offer decent wages, incentives to publish or to organize conferences ...
philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2019/10/b… 16/

... on the other side of the spectrum you have philosophers who work under shockingly adverse circumstances, including violence, very low wages, aging libraries, in Nigeria. There are huge variations across the world philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2019/09/t… 17/

Second, in some countries I am unable to recruit any philosopher to write anything, because they are concerned about limitations on freedom of speech by governments and even the university (which might terminate their contract if they didn't write a glowing picture!) 18/

I think that philosophers at anglo-American departments don't quite realize how much freedom of speech they have! This realization is very daunting, along with the almost non-existent support in some countries for philosophy, it urges us to express more solidarity 19/

Third, I have been struck by how philosophy professors tell how big an impact philosophy makes on students. Students are eager for change, big societal changes are afoot & philosophy can be central to this 20/
Examples:
philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2019/09/t…
philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2019/10/b…

The thirst of students in countries across the globe for philosophical thinking and for new ideas to help undergird societal changes convinces me that solidarity between philosophers, globally, and collaborations, are not just a matter of justice but also of urgency 21/

We can make a big difference in what the world will look like tomorrow. The future is not set in stone. But if we want philosophy to be societally relevant, it must be globally relevant, and that should mean less insularity, especially less among Anglo-American philosophers 22/

Side note: the John Templeton Foundation--I know not everyone works with them--is one of the few American organizations that regularly funds philosophy initiatives with a global outlook (e.g., projects by @yujinnagasawa and by Edouard Machery) 23/

So, it would be interesting to hear how we can make this work, how we can make incentive structures to achieve more global engagement with philosophers especially from places that do not have much funding for philosophy. We will talk about this tomorrow on our panel! 24/

Time and date of our panel
16L. Prestige and Inclusion in Anglo-American Academic Philosophy
April 10
8 AM pacific time (= 10 AM central time) to 11 AM pacific time /end

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