FLASH Philosophy

M.G. Piety quickly considers condensed contemplation.

- M.G. Piety

Most contemporary philosophical writing has little impact on the profession as a whole. David Rönnegard already pointed this out in ‘Escaping the Academic Coal Mine’ in Philosophy Now Issue 137. The problem, he asserts, is the focus on quantity over quality of publications in tenure and promotion decisions, and “the arcane research interests of many an academic.” Those aren’t the only reasons that most philosophical writing fails to have much impact, however. Another problem is that philosophical writing tends to be conceptually dense, which makes it difficult and time-consuming to read, even for professional philosophers. In fact, most contemporary academic philosophical writing still follows the late-nineteenth-century model, as exemplified in articles such as McTaggart’s famous ‘The Unreality of Time’, which took up eighteen pages of the journal Mind in 1908.

Life was slower back then. There were fewer universities. Classes were smaller and teaching loads lighter. There was also less pressure to publish. Philosophers had the luxury of spending vast amounts of time developing a single thesis that they would then put forward in a lengthy and densely argued article that they could reasonably expect their colleagues would have more than enough time to read. But nearly everything has changed since that model of scholarship seemed the best way to communicate philosophical insight. There are more universities, more professional philosophers, and more pressure to publish. As class sizes and teaching loads are increasing, so time to devote to research and writing is dwindling.