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“Recent Work” Works

Bill Edmundson

If you’re like me, you’re grateful and relieved to see “Recent Work” or "State of the Art" articles.  Grateful, because if done well they can provide a jump start to get rolling into an unknown area.  Relieved, because they can be a good excuse for ignoring piles of articles that predate the “Recent Work” piece.  This leads me to wonder who wrote the first “Recent Work” article designated as such (please don’t say everything’s a footnote to Plato).  Who wrote the best?  Finally, when will the first “Recent Work on Recent Work” meta-survey appear (if it hasn’t already)?

To the point, Elinor Mason (Edinburgh, Philosophy) has covered "Recent Work on Moral Responsibility."  The link is "subscription only", but the hardcopy cite is: Philosophical Books Volume 46 Issue 4 Page 343 – October 2005.  (Thanks to The Garden of Forking Paths.)

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5 responses to ““Recent Work” Works”

  1. John Fischer

    I pointed out on the Garden of Forking Paths that Professor Mason's interesting and helpful article should really have been called, "Even More Recent Work on Moral Responsibility." (I have a piece in ETHICS a few years back called "Recent Work on Moral Responsibility."

    Wouldn't it be helpful to have a collection made up of some of the best such papers in the various subfields of philosophy? (Both MIND and APQ have published various such papers over the years.)

    Reply
  2. Mark Engleson

    I wonder, given the nature of our ways of thinking, if an answer to this question can avoid parochialism? Its been my experience that, whatever specialization a philosopher has (or for that matter, anyone, in any profession), there is a tendency towards bias for that specialty. Ethicists, I would think, are probably more inclined to think that work on moral philosophy is important and good, and perhaps not thing as highly as they should in fairness, think of work in a very different subfield. I'm not saying that there is a huge amount of bias; but I am certain there is some. Insofar as we are evaluating the quality of these articles, I guess we could distinguish them by such criteria as, breadth – coverage of the relevant material and general factors of good writing, such as clarity. Nonetheless, I think comparing work across subfields is problematic, both for reasons of natural bias and genuine problems of comparison of different kinds of work.

    Reply
  3. Stephen M (Ethesis)

    I have to admit that I bought The Future … as much for this reason as any other and that my brother was delighted beyond measure at being given it at his son's wedding last week.

    Reply
  4. Eric Rovie

    I agree with Professors Edmundson and Fischer that "recent works" essays are usually quite helpful, particularly when they fall slightly outside of a particular area of expertise. In Brian Leiter's collection The Future For Philosophy (maybe this was what Steven M was referring to?) there are several pieces that have similarities to the "recent works" papers, and I expect that Frank Jackson and Michael Smith's Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy will have more nice essays of the same sort, if the advance version of Doris and Stich's essay on empirical approaches to ethics is any indication.

    Reply
  5. Jeff Glick

    "The Intentionality All-Stars" by John Haugeland has certainly got to be a contender for the best example of a "recent work"-type article.

    Reply

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