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More on the “Uselessness” of the APA

Brian Leiter

David Velleman (NYU) writes:

A more significant symptom of the APA’s uselessness is the annual appearance of news items like this one.  A professional organization that was worth the dues would help visiting journalists to understand the central concerns and accomplishments of the discipline, so that they could write more than a hodgepodge of caricatures and titillating tidbits from the program. I have never seen any indication that APA represents us as a discipline to the world at large. It’s just an organizer of meetings — a task for which we could hire a convention-planning service that would be cheaper and more efficient.

Of course, the journalist in question here is a bit notorious for both ignorance of and hostility to philosophy.  Yet Professor Velleman’s general point surely stands:  wherever the APA is hosted, silly news items like this tend to appear in the local press.  Perhaps the APA should send out a new release to local journalists about the conference, explaining its function, and highlighting some sessions and their significance.  That would likely yield more substantive items in at least some newspapers.

Thoughts on this and other APA issues?  Non-anonymous comments preferred; post only once.  Defenders of the APA also welcome!

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30 responses to “More on the “Uselessness” of the APA”

  1. Matt Burstein

    FWIW: Item (4) of the description of the APA Committee on Public Philosophy reads as follows:

    Prepare appropriate news releases for the divisional meetings of the APA and for other events of philosophical significance.

    (In conjunction with item (3), "Establish ties to national and local media", I presume.)

    Reply
  2. Bettina

    I hope you don't mind my saying this, but the complaints seem a teensy bit thin-skinned to me. Philosophy is a profession where one can make a living professing outrageous ideas (see Possible Worlds, Reality Of), and it seems a bit churlish to act as if it's some kind of crime to discuss the field without adopting the properly reverential attitude toward its "central concerns and accomplishments."

    More specifically, I thought the article made a series of substantive points — that there is increased anxiety from job-seekers due to the economy, that philosophers are passionate about their subject, that professional philosophy encompasses an increasingly wide range of subjects, including female sexuality, that philosophers are distinctive in appearance (cf. the cute but accurate paragraph about "long beards reminiscent of 19th-century lithographs," etc.).

    Let me also say that I've noticed a tendency on this blog to complain about the public's perception of philosophy. Everyone gets blamed, from the APA administration to journalists to the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations — everyone except philosophers themselves. Even if this were right, it's a little tacky … one would like a little more humility, and a little more sense that the public perception *might* have something to do with what philosophers actually write.

    Reply
  3. Rebecca Kukla

    Speaking as someone named in the article, I agree with Bettina's comments. I don't see what's so terrible about the article at all, written as a way of giving outsiders some insight into the conference. (The general public is not going to learn about content externalism, etc., from such an article anyhow I assure you.) I found the description of the apoplectic job candidate quite funny and revealing of the (an) essence of the APA. Are people outraged because the papers that interested the non-philosopher reporter were not the ones viewed as most canonically central and prestigious by those in the discipline? Why should they be? Is it obvious that traditional abstract philosophical papers on the most prominent topics are the only ones that are 'substantive'?

    Reply
  4. Laurence B McCullough

    Professor Velleman's comments on the Romano article are not accurate, as Bettina notes. Romano starts with a vivid portrait of job seekers and their plight, a major concern for the discipline (and a portrait that triggered 30+ year-old memories, indicating how long the discipline has had a jobs problem, which we continue not to address). Job seeking has dominated the Eastern Division meetings for decades and so starting with it accurately reflects the tone of Eastern Division meetings, like it or not. Romano then goes on to describe the APA in some detail, e.g., it has three divisions, and the meeting. Romano illustrates his account of the meeting with vignettes of people and events — all standard journalistic fare. It struck me as informed, informative, and engaging. And so it should fair-minded readers.

    Reply
  5. Brian Leiter

    Let's see, now, the entire content of the Eastern Division meeting was reduced to papers on female orgasm and erectile dysfunction, Cornel West, and the Simpsons. A "fair-minded" person might think this an odd portrayal of the conference.

    Reply
  6. Rebecca Kukla

    No, Brian, it wasn't "reduced to papers on female orgasm and erectile dysfunction, Cornell West, and the Simpsons." The article pointed out that such papers happened and were unusual against the background of standard philosophy, which frankly can't be summarized in a newspaper article. The Simpsons volume was gently mocked. No one who read the article could possibly get the impression that these types of topics made up the bulk of the conference – quite the opposite.

    I do plenty of 'serious' philosophy (on M&E, philosophy of language, and eighteenth century philosophy) and some of it was even featured at the APA. But I find it absurd to think that mass media would be interested in that work, and I don't find it at all surprising or problematic that a reporter would be more interested in my work on female sexuality. It is, frankly, more interesting to a non-philosopher, and to almost anyone who would read the Inquirer article.

    Reply
  7. Brian Leiter

    Actually it was reduced exactly as I described: nothing else was mentioned in the article with regard to the program content. Not Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Pogge, Hillel Steiner, the Presidential Address by Christine Korsgaard, the Romanell Lecture by Elliott Sober, and on and on. There was a huge amount on the program apart from externalism about content that was directly engaged with issues of public concern and some of it quite accessible to boot. But the article reduced it all, as Professor Velleman quite accurately said, to "a hodgepodge of caricatures and titillating tidbits." And even your paper and Professor Lloyd's–which, I'm sure, were quite serious papers–were singled out not because of their intellectual content but because of their "titillating" subject-matter. I suppose we could excuse this on the grounds that journalists must pander. But must they? And could not the APA help educate journalists about the subject? Those were, I take it, the issues raised by Professor Velleman.

    Reply
  8. Paul Raymont

    The Romano article does reinforce a silly caricature not just of philosophy but of humanities academics more generally (e.g., men in sport jackets with elbow patches). But I'm not sure how much of the silly press coverage is the APA's fault; even if the APA were to offer more guidance to the press, journalists will still go for the easy, irresponsible caricature.

    The APA does offer some helpful on-line resources, but that section of the site needs an overhaul. It contains several dead links. Now that the Episteme site has, sadly, been wrecked by malicious code, perhaps the APA site could provide more of the resources that Episteme has offered.

    Reply
  9. jon kvanvig

    DV's general point about the value of the APA is well-taken. I've paid my dues every year for more than 25 years, but I'm wondering why. The issue about uselessness is primary, and even where efforts are made to be helpful, such as with JFP, the product looks Luddite. At a minimum, an online, searchable database is easy to construct. But suggestions of this sort are met with, let us say, marked indifference. And at conference-running, as some of the job-seeker blogs make clear, things are done in an equally inadequate fashion.

    Brian's suggestion about a news release every now and then is a good one, and DV's general point that it is perfectly reasonable to expect much more out of a national association than we are getting is exactly right.

    Reply
  10. Jeff Helzner

    I've heard that the Association for Symbolic Logic is trying to broaden its base. If true, then formal philosophers might consider adopting the ASL as their main professional organization. In general the ASL seems to be an excellent organization, and the $82 membership gets you a subscription to all three ASL journals!

    Reply
  11. Holly Andersen

    I think Velleman has a point beyond the accuracy of the newspaper article. Whether or not one liked the article, there seems to be a growing awareness of the fact that not only is the current way of organizing and administrating the APA and its meetings not accomplishing the goals that could be, and need to be, addressed, but that there are other ways of proceeding with APA administration that may be within reach (and budget).

    For instance, placement services this year was a most unhelpful experience. The line was incredibly long, and at the end of it one really only got to ascertain the suite or table number of various interviewing schools. Except that this information wasn't available the evening before interviews started. For those of us with interviews first thing in the morning on Sunday, this was problematic. It turned out that the location information was available somewhere, just not to the people who were supposed to provide it to the job seekers. An hour long line that leads only to disappointment and a bit of panic (where do I go tomorrow morning?) when there is no information on the location of a single one of my interviews is an unnecessary and disheartening experience. Similarly, as others have commented, advance registration appears to have saved no real time (except for a line that was sometimes shorter).

    These things are not hard to fix. And it isn't very hard to have a standard version of an APA meeting press release that gets updated and sent out before the meeting. I took Velleman's point to be that (regardless of what one thinks of the newspaper article itself) these things aren't being done and they should be.

    Reply
  12. D Jagannathan

    With respect, Professors Leiter and Vellemann are missing the point. The article is not about the content of the papers presented at the APA. There are three well-defined focuses: the severe state of the job market, the distinctive character of philosophy within the humanities and academia, and the new openness of philosophy to previously extracanonical areas of interest. These are all areas of possible interest to the general public; so are the talks by Professors Nussbaum, Pogge, etc., (whose work, admittedly, is of much greater professional interest to me) but those would be material for a rather different article.

    Reply
  13. Jon Lawhead

    This point is slightly tangential, but I think it's worth making: if this kind of coverage upsets us as a profession, then perhaps we should consider the worth of being our own ambassadors to the public, rather than either asking an organization (APA or otherwise) to do it for us, or trusting the press to do it without help. Too many philosophers, I think, are hostile to having their work democratized or explained to the general public (for whatever reason), or are only interested in having a conversation with other academics. It's certainly not true that all philosophers hold this anti-public position, but in my experience many do. If we want the public to understand what we're doing, we should try our best to explain ourselves–we should make our work accessible.

    Reply
  14. mark lance

    I agree with several posters that the portrayal of the article is inaccurate. The main focus – about 3/4 was the job market. On the conference itself, The topics that so bother some posters here were repeatedly described as departures from the norm, as a sign that philosophy was branching out. (If you explicitly say that the topics you mention aren't central, you are explicitly not reducing the conference to those topics.) And of course several other topics were mentioned – philosophy of language, session on Rorty, etc. I honestly thought it one of the best articles on philosophy I've seen in the mainstream press. (Not that this is setting the bar very high.)

    I do agree that the APA could do more to push for serious discussion of academic issues in the mainstream press. I probably have more pessimistic views on the potential fairness of the corporate press than most — just read four op eds in two days in the Washington Post saying that Israel was doing the absolutely perfect thing at the moment, that it was all the fault of Hamas, who have no rational grievance whatsoever, none, not a bit, only anti-semitism pure and simple; beyond that I've been an activist for 20 years and have watched enough defenses of the indefensible to suspect that encouragement of critical thought is not on the agenda — but that is no reason not to do what we can.

    But let's do be clear that APA dues are very low compared to other professions, and that the conferences are vastly cheaper. The APA does not employ a full time media person and it would cost a lot more to do so. So, why not take this on ourselves? Do we need to have the APA do it for us? Can't folks interested in working up a press strategy use, say, this forum to develop it? Again, I'm probably betraying my activist roots, but this doesn't seem like something that has to be professionalized and centralized. We all have lots of social capital, what with being professors and all. Or if we want it via the APA — so as to mobilize all the political clout of the APA 🙂 – let's just propose forming an ad hoc committee on media relations, or some such and get those op ed's rolling.

    Mark Lance

    Reply
  15. Christopher Gauker

    Here's a question that Brian could open up for discussion: What should the APA do differently, and how can we make it happen? Obviously, this could stand to be broken down into subquestions (leadership, meetings, publications, public relations, etc.).

    Reply
  16. john

    Do Professors at the APA really wear sports jackets with elbow patches? And do you really stand a chance of seeing the ghost of David Lewis's beard? What about Sidgwick's?

    Wow! Sounds like it might be worth the price of admittance to me. I'm not so sure about the travel cost though.

    I'll have to read more of Romano's article and see what other aspects of the APA he illuminates before I make my final decision. I hope he provides a good representation of the substantive features of the discipline. Maybe he'll even spend a lot of time discussing what a great chance I stand of finding a job; boy, that would really peak my interest in pursuing philosophy.

    Reply
  17. Aldo Antonelli

    Let me second Jeff Helzner's point: the ASL is indeed trying to reach out to philosophers (this is not a "new" development, it is rather an attempt to return to the broader constituency the ASL had for a few decades following its inception in 1936). ASL meetings in North America are usually held in academic venues as opposed to expensive hotels (except meetings held in conjunction with the APA or the AMS), meeting registration fees are around $30, and the ASL is a true international organization — while the APA is rather narrowly North-American. And as Jeff pointed out, membership gets you a subscription to all 3 journals of the association.

    Reply
  18. Stephen Nayak-Young

    In response to the suggestions that a different organization might do a better job, I wonder what it is that those who are dissatisfied with the APA think leads to its purported "uselessness."

    I think that the nature and effectiveness of such organizations is usually determined by their membership. If the APA's members are dissatisfied with it, they should work to change it and improve the level of service it provides. If, however, its members are not prepared to put in the effort to change the APA, why think that the same membership would be better disposed to do so if it were transferred to the ASL or some other organization? It's not as if there's anything wrong with the name "APA," right?

    That leads me to wonder (and I hereby inquire) whether there is some problem with recalcitrance or inefficiency at the administrative or executive level that makes it especially difficult for the APA's members to make the APA into the organization they want and need it to be. If there is, such problems can usually be overcome without blowing up the organization and starting over, although it is often difficult to make changes in personnel or long-established organizational rules and practices.

    I should say that I write these things as a non-member, and I have no unstated theories about where the problems, if any, with the APA might lie. I'm in my first year of a Philosophy PhD program, and I haven't yet joined the APA, but I plan to do so this summer.

    Although I have little specific experience with the APA, I've been a member of two state bar associations for years, and I have seen that other professional organizations can make significant changes when enough of their membership takes an interest. If the APA's members want to make changes to it, what's stopping them?

    Reply
  19. Ken Taylor

    David Velleman is essentially correct about the APA as it is currently constituted. But I think the whole situation is extremely complicated and will not be easily changed.

    As I see it, the National Office of the APA — which would be the office you would expect to perform the kind of function DV alludes to — is essentially powerless. It functions mainly (though not exclusively, I admit) as a facilitator for the activities of our three autonomous, self-governing divisions. And the main job of each of the three divisions is, essentially, to put on one meeting a year.

    There are, of course, the standing committees of the APA — on which I have served for a number of years. And they do do some good and relevant work. But they really have little power and little funding.

    I don't want to reopen old wounds. But many of you will know that our last executive director did want to and, in fact, tried to turn the National Office into an independent power center within the APA. He provoked quite a donny brook. I intend not to be taking sides in these characterizations. But for better or for worse I think with the departing of that executive director died the idea of the National Office of the APA having much of any role beyond its current main role of facilitating the activities of the Divisions.

    I personally think we need a stronger National Office, which isn't just a servant of the divisions but an advocate for the profession at large. Don't know how that will ever happen or how exactly to best sort out the relations between the several divisions and a strengthened and empowered national office. But I do think we need a collective conversation about that issue and I think it need to be conducted not just among the members of the board, but among the members of the profession at large.

    Reply
  20. Dirk Baltzly

    As an ex-pat I maintain my international membership in the American Philosophical Association, as well as my membership in the Australasian Association for Philosophy (www.aap.org.au). I must say that I think that Australian philosophy gets a slightly better run in the Australian press than its American counterpart. Doubtless there are lots of external reasons for this: smaller pool of papers, more personal contacts with journalists, perhaps even a slightly higher-brow broadsheet press. I'm not sure. But I think it may help that the AAP has a terrific media officer in Caroline West (Sydney). Moreover, the AAP's Media Prize at least makes members of the profession aware of what our peers are publishing in the popular press. Writing for a wider audience is, I think, a very difficult thing to do. I'm glad that many of my peers are so good at it.

    Reply
  21. Michael Conboy

    While Carlin Romano's writing on philosophy is generally execrable, I actually thought this article wasn't all that bad. In fact, if it had stuck to the main topic — the bad job market, as displayed at the APA — it would have been pretty accurate. Yes, it could have been much more representative of the content of the conference as a whole, but if the topic were just the job market it wouldn't necessarily have to. What I found most iffy was, rather, the supposed connection between the first half of the article and the later bits about new topics and pop philosophy. The latter, especially, seems to have everything to do with the profits of publishers, and nothing to do with the prospects of academic job seekers.

    As for the suggestion that the development of philosophy in some areas beyond the traditional core has improved the job market, or was somehow intended to (it's not clear which of these Romano is trying to get at with the vague assertion that "in recent years, the APA has helped by displaying greater openness to diverse philosophical traditions") I'm not sure what to say. Maybe there is something to this — I'd be curious to hear what those with more perspective think — but my hunch is that here it's mainly an excuse for Romano to work in his pet point that, supposedly, Old White Dudes' Philosophy just ain't viable anymore. (Previously this was because Rorty had proven the impossibility of such philosophy; now it's apparently because there's no money in it.) This is certainly irritating, but I'm not sure what the APA is supposed to do about it in this particular case. There is really no question of helping Romano to a greater understanding of this discipline of the whole, as evidently he either does not wish to understand it, or is attached to a willful misunderstanding.

    In general, however, I strongly agree that there needs to be more contact and understanding between philosophers and journalists. Speaking personally: I worked for the Chronicle during the period when Romano produced some of his worst pieces (including the Rorty one), and my impression from conversations with the editorial staff was that they were generally quite open, and in some cases eager to learn more about the real intellectual and social state of the discipline. But, with the exception of the complaints that crop up when a particularly bad article comes out, I don't know of many overtures on the part of philosophers, or the APA, thus to educate.

    So, my advice is that philosophers who think they are doing something that would, or ought to be of interest to the greater public shouldn't hesitate to pitch it to journalists at appropriate publications (online as well as print, I should add.) Of course there are limits on what people will read, but those who think good journalism can't be combined with even a degree of philosophical substance might take a look, for example, at this classic article from Lingua Franca on the Kripke/Barcan Marcus controversy. (And those who are skeptical of the idea that there could be a home for such pieces in the (relative) mainstream nowadays might recall that the Chronicle was quick to acquire AL Daily, which had been owned by Lingua Franca, when the latter went under several years later.)

    Reply
  22. Gregory Wheeler

    To amplify Jon Kvanvig's remarks, Jobs for Philosophers and the placement services are far below par. Departments write out adverts for jobs on paper, mail them in to the APA, and someone there (re-)types this information into a non-searchable file designed to yield a camera ready image for a printing press. Then, at the meeting, a bottleneck forms as hundreds of people queue to find someone with a clipboard who has interview room information. This is no way to run a business.

    Suggestions: Let departments type their own ads into an online form and create a searchable jobs database; stop printing JfP on paper and get rid of the typing pool for JfP entirely; use a scheduling software system for interviews, and put *all* of the services handled by the jobs placement service online. Let candidates and interviewers trade messages on the system, upload CVs, dossiers, etc.: offering the option of a paperless search to departments is an example of how to add value to the profession. Searchable job ads, candidate and department interview schedules, along with the meeting program…all of this should be entirely online. The APA IT person should be able to write such a program in short order, with the appropriate security for privacy and financial data. (If not, get a new IT person.) Worried about students not having a computer? Rent a bank of them from the hotel with part of the money saved by not lodging APA people with clipboards. Then, plow the rest of the savings into setting up a press office.

    Reply
  23. Fritz Warfield

    The "visiting journalist" author of this particular article was on the Eastern Division program this year and "teaches philosophy" according to his semi-regular Chronicle of Higher Education byline. This is what we get from what passes for an *insider*.

    Reply
  24. Christopher Morris

    The Am Polit Scie Association is of course much larger than the APA. But for years now they have had a job listing program that is quite extraordinary. I have not looked at it for some time. But when I last did, jobs were posted every month, and they could be grouped in any number of ways: geography, types of institution, rank, area, etc. The APA listings by contrast have not changed essentially since I first looked for positions in the late seventies. I remember writing the APA some time ago recommending that the job listings be posted on the www; the polite answer I received was that this had been considered but it was thought — and I don't blame the organization here — that this might disadvantage students with limited or no access to computers. (What? As opposed to students who had to rely on the Italian postal service?)A few years later the www postings started.

    There is something archaic about out APA. It's bizarre that the programs and bulletins have not changed format or appearance in thirty or forty years. But the dues keep climbing up, and we should get something a little bit better for our money.

    Reply
  25. Don Hubin

    In the autumn of 2006, I had some telephone and e-mail correspondence with the APA about the format of job listings. On December 21, 2006, I wrote to the chairs of 90 Ph.D.-granting philosophy departments asking for their support for my attempt to get the APA to list these jobs using a structured database in order to ease the work of job candidates and their departments and to allow for easy sorting and filtering of advertised positions. I received 16 replies–all positive, some enthusiastic. I subsequently wrote to the APA listing the other departments that had endorsed my suggestions and I included additional suggestions that had come as a result of my request to these departments.

    Because I was told that the APA was in the process of overhauling the way JFP handles job listings, I expected to see some improvement, even if it wasn't all that I was proposing. However, so far as I can see, there have been no improvements in the way the APA handles job postings. And, indeed, there has apparently been some worsening (lack of alphabetization and duplication of print and web ads).

    Reply
  26. Andrew Mills

    Might it not be possible for some independent, online Job database be created, so departments advertising jobs would send their ads both to the JFP as well as to this new, independent, Job database? Some sort of philosophy version of Craigslist, perhaps? That way, an online searchable database would be created–the sort of thing Don Hubin mentions–and perhaps interviewing departments could even use that database to post the interview table numbers, or suite numbers, once the APA begins, so that job candidates would not need to rely on the placement office exclusively for this information. This shouldn't be too difficult to set up, and if it takes off, it could then replace the print JFP entirely. Perhaps some small ad fee would cover the relevant costs. We don't need to wait for the APA to set this up for us–we could easily do it ourselves.

    Reply
  27. Aaron Garrett

    APSA makes for an excellent comparison and I agree with Prof. Morris entirely — the APA and APSA are worlds apart in what they offer to their respective disciplines. Given the current state of affairs I wish that the jobs were just posted publicly — i.e., that one didn't have to be a member to get the JFP — and that as Prof. Velleman suggests a conference planner could be hired instead.

    Reply
  28. Don Hubin

    Andrew Mills suggests an independent philosophy job listing. I think this is a terrific idea. Anyone considering creating a service of this sort should, though, first communicate with Tom Stone. Tom created the terrific general philosophy site Episteme Links. (The site is now, unfortunately, shut down–possible forever–because of a viral infection that resulted in malware being transmitted through it.)

    I was on the board of directors of Episteme Links, Inc. A few years back, Tom proposed creating such a job listing on Episteme Links. I supported the idea because of the antiquated approach to job listings taken by the APA. Tom got it up and running, but I don't believe he could get enough traffic to make it work. There is, of course, a classic "getting started" problem for services like these that creates a significant barrier to entry.

    If someone is serious about trying to set up such a service, I will be happy to pass along contact information for Tom Stone, though he's pretty easy to find on the web with a simple Google search for "'Thomas Stone' philosophy". It would be worth learning from his experience before investing time in this project.

    Don

    Reply
  29. Rob Tempio, Princeton University Press

    Please permit me the shameless, but not irrelevant plugging of our 30th anniversary edition of Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature which contains the previously unpublished essay, "The Philosopher as Expert." The essay which was originally written sometime between 1958 and 1961 and which is an early example of Rorty's later views on what precisely philosophers should think of themselves as doing, opens with Rorty talking about the NY Times's then tendency to note the occurrence of the Eastern APA meeting:

    "An unusually thorough reader of the THE NEW YORK TIMES will occasionally come across a back page squib announcing that the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association has just held its annual three day meeting…"

    After some comical mimcry of the contents of such articles, he then goes on to say that the reader of such an article "may ask himself, why couldn't the TIMES find anything newsworthy in all that paper reading."

    Somethings never change. The essay is worth a read if I may so myself (again, shameless, but not irrelevant plug).

    Reply
  30. Ralph Wedgwood

    In the UK, we have the website jobs.ac.uk, where all UK academic jobs are now advertised. Admittedly, this is for all academic subjects, not just for philosophy, but it is easy to search for philosophy jobs on it. Unlike JfP, which is only available to paid-up members of the APA, jobs.ac.uk is freely available to everyone. To quote from the web site:

    "jobs.ac.uk was created by the Universities Advertising Group (UAG) – a collection of UK universities working together to procure cost-effective recruitment and course advertising.

    "The website was officially launched in January 1998 and is operated from and by the University of Warwick. The aim of the service is to provide a cost-effective alternative to traditional print media."

    I'm sure that it would be possible to do something similar in the USA, which would presumably work better than JfP does at present.

    Reply

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