Analytic Political Philosophy?

The University of Southampton wants to recruit a lecturer ‘in the field of analytic political philosophy‘. ‘Analytic political philosophy’ is not a ‘field’ within political philosophy, however. If it were, there would, of course, be nothing wrong with this job ad. The term ‘analytic’ does not here denote a way of doing philosophy; it is actually merely a warning label to ward off any political philosopher who has come under any influence from outside the Anglophone trailer-park.

Parasitic Keynote Speakers

To continue on the parasitism theme…

The business model of a certain type of academic conference appears to be somewhat exploitative. There are two types of speakers presenting papers, minor speakers and major (or ‘keynote’) speakers. The minor speakers are ‘accepted’ by the conference organizers whereas the keynote speakers are ‘invited’. The minor speakers ususally have to pay for the privilege of being allowed to present a paper at the conference (sometimes their own institutions help them out with this). In contrast, the keynote speakers are paid to present their papers by the conference organizers.

This model, in which the money coming into a conference comes from the minor speakers and the money going out of the conference goes to the keynote speakers, may seem fair enough. The keynote speakers are established figures in their field and often have something important and interesting to say [ahem], whereas the minor speakers have not yet established themselves and are often not worth listening to. Furthermore, a good keynote speaker will contribute far more than just their own presentation, but will attend the talks given by the minor speakers, ask pertinent questions, make useful comments, and lead discussions. I can think of a handful of keynote speakers who did just this, and they are to be commended.

However, there is a certain type of keynote speaker who just gives a ‘keynote address’ and then buggers off with the money that they’ve snatched out of the pockets of lesser-mortal speakers, avoiding any contact with the rest of the conference-attending scum, lest they should be soiled by having to discuss things with proles who are not members of the academic glitterati. Such keynote speakers are nothing but parasites! They should be named and shamed.

Parasitic Publishers

Peter Ludlow makes some good points in this article about traditional closed-access academic journal publishers who charge a huge amount for subscriptions while paying authors nothing:

https://chronicle.com/article/Aaron-Swartz-Was-Right/137425/

Brian Leiter, the high priest of the analytic illuminati, true to form, defends the institutional establishment. He writes:

‘publishers provide value, through copy-editing, preservation, and distribution of scholarship.   They need to recoup those costs‘

Do closed-access journal publishers really provide value through copy-editing? I have experienced the outsourced copy-editors used by one of the most prominent journal publishers desecrating the grammar and punctuation of an article I wrote to the point of meaninglessness. Their English was clearly not proficient. I had to correct their ‘corrections’ back to the original. I wonder how common this is.

Bashing Bachelard

The best way ‘analytic’ parochialism can bash a non-analytic philosopher is to rip him off and then ignore him. This is what Kuhn did to Bachelard via Koyré. In anglophone philosophy of science textbooks, discontinuity in scientific change is represented solely by reams of pulp devoted to Kuhnian banality. Far superior philosophers, like Bachelard and Canguilhem, whose work preceded Kuhn are completely ignored. Kuhn was a Johnny-come-lately mediocrity who did nothing of note other than The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and Structure itself was sub-Bachelardian.

One particularly glaring case of bashing-Bachelard-by-omission is Stathis Psillos’s Philosophy of Science A-Z (EUP 2007). There is no entry for Bachelard in this reference book, yet it contains entries for all sorts of nobodies.

One would be tempted to put this down to anglo-parochialism, but Psillos is Greek! He must have had the philosophical depth knocked out of him during his time at the London School of Economics’ dreadful department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method. All this goes to show that ‘analytic’ small-mindedness is not confined to trailer-park universities, but has been globalized. It has even reached Athens itself. Truly an intellectual catastrophe of historic proportions.

CFP Analytic Philosophy of Religion

A call for papers to be presented at the ‘Glasgow Philosophy of Religion Seminar’ stipulates that ‘presentations are invited on any topic within analytic philosophy of religion, broadly construed to include non-western traditions.’

Nice of them to ‘broadly construe’ what religion is, but the philosophy of religion must be confined to ‘analytic’. And what does ‘analytic’ mean here? That institutionalized parochialism must be jealously guarded? Nothing informed by French or German philosophy of religion is to be accepted?

This is the inaugural post in a category entitled ‘No Continental Philosophers, No Dogs’.

Endowed chair?

Expiring today on jobs.ac.uk is an advertisement for the post of ‘Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies’ at the University of Louisville. What’s an ‘Endowed Chair’? A chair with a dick on it? I think you’ll find it invariably is.

This is the inaugural post in a category entitled ‘Gratuitous and Unnecessary’.

What is analytic philosophy today?

Once upon a time, around a hundred years ago, the term ‘analytic philosophy’ actually meant something philosophical. It referred to a particular philosophical stance that restricted philosophy to the logical analysis of given concepts, dismissing everything else as meaningless metaphysical speculation. Such a severe restriction was evidently a dead-end, and was subsequently abandoned around 50 years ago. But the term ‘analytic philosophy’ lived on. Now we have ‘analytic metaphysics’, ‘analytic moral philosophy’, and even ‘analytic theology’! Has the term lost all its philosophical significance? Has it become a mere label that arbitrarily gathers together disparate approaches? So-called ‘analytic philosophers’ tend to claim that the term refers to a form of philosophizing that values clarity and rigour, contrasting this with the alleged obscurantism of ‘Continental Philosophy’. So-called ‘Continental philosophers’ often characterize ‘analytic philosophy’ by its banality and uncritical conservative philistinism. While these characterizations may have some truth in them, I would like to put forward the hypothesis that the term ‘analytic philosophy’ is now nothing more than a proper name for the institutionalized parochialism of anglophone philosophy departments.

The institutional boundaries that ensure ignorance of ‘Continental Philosophy’ in these ‘analytic’ departments are aggressively policed through a number of means, including job recruitment practices, journal editorial policies, and unjustified hysterical bleatings about obscurantism and charlatans. Ignorance is unforgiveable in a philosopher, especially ignorance of philosophy itself! Hence it is defensiveness that is behind much of the hysteria.

This is the inaugural post in a category entitled ‘The Imbecility of Analytic Philosophy’ (a phrase adapted from Slavoj Žižek (The Indivisible Remainder)).