The Works of Philosophy vs. the Discipline of Philosophy
Why I still love the former, but not so sure about the latter.
Thanks to Anthony Bradley for having me on his podcast to talk about some of the issues going on in the higher education world. I didn’t anticipate that after completing grad school in philosophy, there would be so much I would need to process, particularly about 1) my interest in philosophy, and 2) the reality of higher education. I have written before about how difficult it is to be in a PhD program, especially for a family.
But until recently I haven’t been able to put my finger on any common theme that I’ve been needing to sort out as I reflect and move on. What I have found in my case, and for many others I know, is the stark contrast between the joy, wonder, and satisfaction in first discovering the works of philosophy, and the inevitable sadness in discovering the tragedy that has become the field of philosophy.
I first discovered works of philosophy during my freshman year in college, and I couldn’t believe there was an entire discipline that had been going on for 2,500 years that is so perfectly suited to the way I naturally think. Prior to college I had always wondered about big questions involving existence, knowledge, ethics, what God is like and why he made the world the way it is, etc. Because almost none of my friends externally wondered or even cared about those kinds of topics, I probably thought it was just an annoying part of my personality. I thought my interest and questions would be perceived as just conceptual troublemaking. When I got to college, my perspective on philosophy completely changed when I took a philosophy elective. My first philosophy professor was Grady Spires, a Harvard grad who also trained and briefly taught at Westminster Theological Seminary, where my dad was teaching. In appearance, Grady looked exactly like what you picture when you think of a philosophy professor: white beard, much older, like a Socrates who did cardio. In personality, however, he was thankfully the complete opposite of what you might imagine when you think of a philosophy professor: he was hilarious, social, enjoyed dramatically acting out classroom illustrations, did funny voices, was a fantastic singer…I could go on. He was brilliant on the subject matter, but entertaining in the way he presented it. The joy of philosophical wonder naturally flowed from his teaching, even at his age. His personality and his interest in philosophy were contagious, and his example gave me permission to pursue the big questions I had already been thinking about, in tandem with my twin interest, theology.
Until my doctoral studies, my perception of philosophy as a discipline didn’t change much. I continued to find joy in reading philosophical works and to think about all those big questions, and I assumed (wrongly) that the philosophy profession was just more of that, but done more deeply. I took a couple philosophy-related courses after college as part of my M.A.R. at Westminster Theological Seminary, and I eventually took a doctoral class on skepticism at UNC Chapel Hill as part of my ThM course work. The course at UNC and the encouragement from my professors there prompted me to seriously consider applying to PhD programs. The prospect of studying philosophy at such a high level as a vocation was too exciting to give up. After submitting many applications to PhD programs, I was put on a couple wait lists and eventually got into an unfunded master’s program, but the whole process was a bust. Because I had gotten so close to being admitted, I decided to try for a second and last round of applications to programs. To boost the quality of my application packet, I took two doctoral courses at the University of Virginia, where I was living at the time: a course on Aristotle’s metaphysics and a course on the phenomenon of vagueness. (Yes, it really is a thing.) I got a recommendation from my prof at UVA, and submitted the second round of applications. All I could do was wait.
I still remember everything about the moment I got the phone call from the philosophy professor at Texas A&M who told me I was accepted into the program (6 years ago this week). I was ecstatic, and couldn’t wait to start getting deep into the works that had brought me such joy since college. In my mind, I had finally achieved the key to a career teaching philosophy.
But soon after I arrived to the program, the discipline of philosophy happened. I learned within the first year that 1) getting a stable, full-time job teaching philosophy after completing the PhD is unlikely, 2) the political climate/demands of the job market make it even more unlikely for me in particular to get hired, and 3) even to be considered as a viable candidate I would need to immediately start working on high quality papers that are accepted at conferences and, most importantly, papers that are published at the best philosophical journals. I didn’t know any of this when I started the program. You can hear more about those challenges in the podcast interview.
The intensity and amount of work it took to produce philosophical research never bothered me. Though it was difficult, I enjoyed the process of writing papers for conferences, and early in the program I took on the challenge of writing papers that are good enough to be reviewed and accepted by peer experts in the field. Those tasks seemed directly relevant to high quality philosophical work. But as naïve as it might sound, I got into philosophy because I wanted to teach and talk about big and complex questions involving metaphysics, philosophy of religion, epistemology, ethics, the philosophy of language, etc. I wanted to pass along the joy I saw from Dr. Spires. But like most people, I didn’t know that the best jobs in the discipline of philosophy mostly reward independent research rather than teaching. The miniscule number of stable, full-time, long term jobs mostly go to those who have been successful at philosophical research (i.e. published in journals), with little regard for teaching desire or effectiveness. There are exceptions, of course, but faculty know that to have any chance at getting a decent job in the field you’ll have to get published, so that research-based universities can justify paying you something that resembles a salary. You can worry about teaching and students’ well-being later.
After doing all the things that the discipline demanded (conferences, publishing, teaching all kinds of courses) while coming up short in its rat race, I now hold the mainstream field of philosophy at a healthy arm’s length. I still love reading the best works of philosophy, and continue to produce works of my own. (Look for work forthcoming in journals.) I love teaching, and have been fortunate to keep teaching currently at several institutions as adjunct faculty. But adjunct teaching can’t support a family, so it remains to be seen whether the discipline will be viable as a profession in the long run. So I hope my experience can act both as an encouragement and a warning: by all means, keep the wonder and love of reading those great works of philosophy, but also know that the discipline and profession is practically engineered to systematically extinguish it.
This was a really really hard read for me - I'm in Software Engineering and I pretty much loathe it. I have been desiring to go back to Philosophy (my undergrad) for at least a Masters, but I was always thinking PhD. Having kiddos, I thought doing philosophy on the side would be do-able, kiddos need a ton of time and attention, I just dont have the time to read deeply. Or worst case, you read something deeply, make some interesting connections or counter-arguments, but then you forget because you aren't able to read again for 4 days (and your notes are gibberish). I appreciate you writing this because truth that hurts is genuinely helpful, but man if I make the plunge I had better have a ton of faith and both eyes open