Since hiring and career advancement in philosophy depends a great deal on publication in journals, this incentivizes an emphasis on doing philosophy in the form of essays, and, in particular, the kinds of essays that journals want to publish.
I agree with much of what is said here. Especially of potential importance (and not only in the discipline of Philosophy) is the shadow of the (as mentioned in this great substack)
- Selection-based reduction
and the
- Skill-building reduction
THAT SAID, coming from a country (let's say somewhere in the South of Europe) where job recruitment has been done for decades and still in many (most?) Departments based on how well you "get along" with the department senior members and not truly on merit, when metrics (scientometrics metrics mostly) started being taken a bit seriously 15 years ago that was a clear progress. So these days in this corner in the South of Europe you do have this debate raging... and it's actually quite interesting... merit-based recruitment based on sheer metrics being the exception, most people actually favor moving away from this system, or only tend to emphasize the excesses of the system (there have been many such excesses indeed in a few cases... As proof that you can have the worst of both worlds, these days the President of the oldest university in this corner in the south of Europe has apparently run a paper mill system where his citations were inflated for years... he has not stepped down in spite of the case having been amply covered in national media).
So I have seen a couple of cheap "online surveys" being distributed among philosophy professionals in this country where they were asked about how much they valued the current system of metrics and journal quartiles and so on, and whether alternative systems should be taken into account for recruitment and promotion (as if this system were currently the main system for recruitment and promotion, which it is not)... Guess what most people who completed the survey replied.
You do have a point that people who are good at the system will tend, ceteris paribus, to support it more than the average. But the opposite also applies, people who are bad at "playing the game" tend to be extremely critical of it... now please note that according to my immodest assessment of how things work in this corner of the developed world those (but note that in this part of the world most university professors have never worked professionally at a different university than the one they are currently employed) will tend to be on average but very clearly also those who tend to have less skills in other ways of serving the profession.
So the survey or study deserves to be done, but properly, because motivated bias runs both ways.
And Goodhart's law is a true concern, but in certain places of the university world Gresham's law is a concern as well.
Yup, pretty much. I have a ton of respect for people who are prolific article authors, but it’s a very specific skill and a lot goes in to being a good philosopher that is not captured by it — and some good philosophers are not great at publishing.
I have several opinions concerning metaethics, some of which are original. I doubt that I can prove any of them are true or false. I'd like to get your expert opinion about which, if any, are true. However, I don't want to send a long comment you lack the time to answer. What do you advise?
For any aliens just arrived secretly from off-planet:
Firstly -- hi, welcome! Sorry about the mess.
If you're wondering what's happening here, it's fairly simple.
1. Humans are primates;
2. Primates like to chatter;
3. Primates like to eat bananas;
4. This primate wants to get paid in bananas, just for chattering;
5. Here he's arguing that the bananas should also be controlled by his cronies, with no record of what was said.
Exactly. We'll miss you too. Have a safe trip.
I agree with much of what is said here. Especially of potential importance (and not only in the discipline of Philosophy) is the shadow of the (as mentioned in this great substack)
- Selection-based reduction
and the
- Skill-building reduction
THAT SAID, coming from a country (let's say somewhere in the South of Europe) where job recruitment has been done for decades and still in many (most?) Departments based on how well you "get along" with the department senior members and not truly on merit, when metrics (scientometrics metrics mostly) started being taken a bit seriously 15 years ago that was a clear progress. So these days in this corner in the South of Europe you do have this debate raging... and it's actually quite interesting... merit-based recruitment based on sheer metrics being the exception, most people actually favor moving away from this system, or only tend to emphasize the excesses of the system (there have been many such excesses indeed in a few cases... As proof that you can have the worst of both worlds, these days the President of the oldest university in this corner in the south of Europe has apparently run a paper mill system where his citations were inflated for years... he has not stepped down in spite of the case having been amply covered in national media).
So I have seen a couple of cheap "online surveys" being distributed among philosophy professionals in this country where they were asked about how much they valued the current system of metrics and journal quartiles and so on, and whether alternative systems should be taken into account for recruitment and promotion (as if this system were currently the main system for recruitment and promotion, which it is not)... Guess what most people who completed the survey replied.
You do have a point that people who are good at the system will tend, ceteris paribus, to support it more than the average. But the opposite also applies, people who are bad at "playing the game" tend to be extremely critical of it... now please note that according to my immodest assessment of how things work in this corner of the developed world those (but note that in this part of the world most university professors have never worked professionally at a different university than the one they are currently employed) will tend to be on average but very clearly also those who tend to have less skills in other ways of serving the profession.
So the survey or study deserves to be done, but properly, because motivated bias runs both ways.
And Goodhart's law is a true concern, but in certain places of the university world Gresham's law is a concern as well.
Yup, pretty much. I have a ton of respect for people who are prolific article authors, but it’s a very specific skill and a lot goes in to being a good philosopher that is not captured by it — and some good philosophers are not great at publishing.
You seem to have a good understanding not only of psychology but also of philosophy and economics.
I don't think I understand economics very well but I appreciate the comment!
Well, your arguments included information I'd expect from an economist.
That's cool!
I have several opinions concerning metaethics, some of which are original. I doubt that I can prove any of them are true or false. I'd like to get your expert opinion about which, if any, are true. However, I don't want to send a long comment you lack the time to answer. What do you advise?
Write a post, he’a notorious for commenting on and/or responding to them.